This image is a color composite of pictures taken from the GROUND using the Palomar 60-inch with a focal reducer. The colors are green [OIII] lambda 5007 emission, red H alpha emission, and blue line-free continuum at 5470 A - ie. the synchrotron emission nebula.
This image was obtained by Paul Scowen of the Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Any but personal use of these images should be indicated to the author. Together with Jeff Hester, Paul Scowen has also investigated the Crab Nebula with the Hubble Space Telescope. Althought the HST images have revealed spectacular new results, it can only photograph small portions of the nebula in its field of view, which is by far not large enough to take a pic of the entire nebula.
Compare this image with the one obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope.
David Malin of the AAO and Jay Pasachoff of Williams College have
postprocessed and enhanced old
Palomar images of the Crab Nebula, M1.
Last Modification: May 29, 2005