Contact: Dr. Henri Boffin
hboffin@eso.org
49-893-200-6222
ESO

Omega Centauri -- The Glittering Giant of the Southern Skies

Caption: The globular cluster Omega Centauri -- with as many as 10 million stars -- is seen in all its splendor in this image captured with the WFI camera from ESO's La Silla Observatory. The image shows only the most central part of the cluster -- the full cluster appears almost as big as the full moon on the sky. The field of view of this image is about half a degree. North is up, East is to the left. This color image is a composite of B, V and I filtered images. Note that because WFI is equipped with a mosaic detector, there are two small gaps in the image which were filled with lower quality data from the Digitized Sky Survey. Can you find them?

Credit: ESO/EIS

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Related news release: Omega Centauri -- the glittering giant of the southern skies