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The Orion nebula's Trapezium star group is the target in this pair of
before and after shots taken by the Subaru Telescope.
At right is the “before” shot, taken in 1999 using the Subaru Telescope
atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The view was taken without the aid of new technology
for sharper clarity.
But last month, astronomers brought a new adaptive optics and laser
guide star system online at the Subaru Telescope. The result produced the
Trapezium’s “after” shot at left, which appears with more than 10 times the resolution
of its predecessor.
Adaptive optics allows a telescope to make swift, yet minute, changes to
its primary mirror to cancel out observation interference caused by the Earth’s
atmosphere.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: Subaru Telescope,
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
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