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    Gemini South’s high-def version of ‘A Star is Born’

    October 6, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Two near-infrared images of the star-forming region in the Carina Nebula known as the Western Wall illustrate the capabilities of a wide-field adaptive optics camera at the Gemini South 8.1-meter telescope on Cerro Pachón mountain in Chile. Both images were captured by captured by Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan and colleagues from telescopes at the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab observatory near near Vicuña, Chile. The lefthand image was taken with the four-meter Blanco telescope’s Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager in 2015. The righthand image, taken in January 2018, has about 10 times finer resolution thanks to a mirror in the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager that changes shape to correct for atmospheric distortion caused by Earth’s atmosphere...
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