By sheer chance, the night sky conditions were perfect for a Japanese
telescope to grab this view of the Crab Nebula
By sheer
chance, the night sky conditions were perfect for a Japanese telescope to grab
this view of the Crab
Nebula.
Operated by
the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the Subaru Telescope used its
Prime Focus Camera to take this high-resolution image of the Crab Nebula from
atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
“We just
wanted to look at something beautiful that could show off the camera’s ability to
take detailed images of a wide field of view,” Subaru team member Toru Yamada
said of the Crab Nebula image in a statement. “As it turns out, my foreign
colleagues are interested in the data, which could be useful for research into
how the Crab Nebula expands over time."
The Crab
Nebula [Hubble
Space Telescope view] is the remnant of an exploded star some 7,200
light-years from Earth towards the constellation Taurus. A neutron
star sits at its center, spinning about 30 times per second.
The
explosion itself was first recorded by observers on Earth in 1054.
-- Tariq Malik
Credit: Subaru Telescope/National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
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