AAO image reference AAT 37. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is about 15 arc min
Image and text © 1985-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory, photograph by David Malin.
In the small region pictured here are three of the brightest stars known in our Galaxy, each a million times more luminous than the Sun. To the left of the picture is an even more extreme star, Eta Carinae itself, shrouded in a small bright irregular nebula of its own making. In the upper right of the photograph is Trumpler 14, a cluster of very young stars which appears to be associated with a number of bright-edged 'elephant trunk' dust lanes, typical of star-forming regions. All these objects and most of the bright stars scattered across the face of the nebula are together in space at a distance of about 7000 light years. Despite this distance, the Carina nebula is clearly visible to the unaided eye to those of us who live in the southern hemisphere.
Entry from NGC 2000.0 (R.W. Sinnott, Ed.) © Sky Publishing Corporation, 1988:
NGC 3372 Nb 10 43.8 -59 52 s Car 120.! great neb, eta CarRelated Images
AAT 9. Eta Carina and the Keyhole nebula
AAT 32. Eta Carina and the Keyhole nebula
AAT 45. The Homunculus around Eta Carina
UKS 6. The Great Nebula in Carina, NGC 3372
UKS 6a. The Great Nebula in Carina, NGC 3372 (wide field)
For details of photographic exposure, search technical table by AAT reference number.