Gemini Legacy image of the complex planetary nebula Sh2-71 as imaged by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on Gemini North on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i. The long-assumed central star is the brightest star near the center, but some astronomers wonder if the much dimmer and bluer star (just to the right and down a bit) might be the parent of this beautiful object.
Gemini South’s first light image from GeMS/GSAOI shows extreme detail in the central part of the globular star cluster NGC 288. North is up, East is right. For more technical details on this image and others see the technical companion article here.
Gemini Observatory image of Kronberger 61 showing the ionized shell of expelled gas resembling a soccer ball. The light of the nebula is primarily due to ionized oxygen (oxygen-III) emission and its central star can be seen as the slightly bluer star very close to the center of the nebula. The field of view is 2.2 x 3.4 arcminutes with north up (rotated 22 degrees west of north). Image processing by Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage.
A portion of the Lagoon nebula imaged by Argentinean astronomers Julia Arias and Rodolfo Barbá using the Gemini South telescope with the Gemini Multiple-Object Spectrograph.
Sharpless 2-106 as imaged by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i. This color composite image shows the nursery of a massive star (hidden within the cloud) obtained with four narrow-band optical filters available for Gemini users at both Gemini North and South
Eta Carinae as imaged by the Gemini South telescope in Chile with the Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) using adaptive optics to reduce blurring by turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. In this image the bipolar lobes of the Homunculus Nebula are visible with the never-before imaged “Little Homunculus Nebula” visible as a faint blue glow, mostly in the lower lobe.
Gemini South image of planetary nebula NGC 6751, the "Glowing Eye Nebula." The image is the result of the winning entry in the 2009 Gemini School Astronomy Contest, submitted by high school student Daniel Tran of PAL College, Cabramatta, NSW, Australia. Using narrow-band filters in the imaging mode of the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph (GMOS), the locations of hydrogen, ionized sulfur, and doubly-ionized oxygen are color-coded in the image as yellow, red, and blue, respectively.
At the heart of a star-forming region called RCW 57, this image shows the complex interaction of interstellar gas and dark dust clouds among newly formed stars. The glowing gas is energized by ultraviolet radiation from the young stars. The intricate wispy structures in the cloud are formed by radiation from the young stars and the explosions of nearby, very massive stars that have exceptionally short lives compared to stars like our sun. A study by M.
The Gemini South Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) recently captured a dramatic image of a vast cloud complex named DEM L316 located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The peanut-shaped nebula appears to be a single object, but the latest research indicates that it is really comprised of two distinct gas and dust clouds formed by different types of supernova explosions.
This Gemini North image shows the well-known planetary nebula NGC 7009 (the Saturn Nebula) in the near infrared with adaptive optics. The image has a full-width-half-maximum of 0.1 arcsecond (K band) and was produced by combining ALTAIR/NIRI images in K, Br-gamma, and H₂ (1-0) bands. The data were obtained in October, 2006 and are now available on the Gemini Science Archive.