Wow... just wow...!!!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/28

You're supposed to be the Poet, Stu, I was expecting more
Well, the picture speaks by itself! It's nice leaving in the Milky Way, isn't it?

What is the source of the prominent light blue diffuse globular cluster-like object in the composite image? I don't see it in the Spitzer IR, Hubber near-IR, or Chandra X-ray components, and did not see a description in the text.

But, yes, wow!

IIRC, there is a globular cluster along the LOS from our viewpoint near the galactic center (but not inside the Galaxy proper, of course).

Could somebody please identify the actual Galaxy center in the picture? That is, the approximate location of the central black hole.

This is the annotated version of the image -- the center of the galaxy is the black hole Sagittarius A.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/r...mat/xlarge_web/

So much detail...

The Sagittarius A region is absolutely stunning at close up.

Here is a carefully coordinated view of a zoom of SgrA* in near IR (Hubble) and X-ray (Chandra) wavelengths:

Click to view attachment

There are definite differences in the patterns between the two images.

The Chandra image was taken from the Chandra website, while the Hubble image was from a presentation by Susan Stolovy for the Galaxy Center image release.

The separate images (Spitzer [R], Hubble [Y], and Chanrda [B]) used to make the "Panel A" composite were loaded into Photoshop. Then the "Panel A" composite was loaded in to help coordinate everyone up. The high res image of SgrA* from the Chandra site was loaded in, and rotated (CCW ca. 45 degrees) and resized to fit the Chandra panel. The Hubble image was placed in the image, resized, and it's outer boundary used to set the crop for the Chandra hi-resolution image.

[BTW, the leftmost blue blob in Panel A doesn't show up in the other images, it turns out the Hubble nearIR image was the lowest common denominator. So the other images were cropped to fit the Hubble image. The blue blob is visible in the full Chandra Galaxy Center Region image - it is binary star system E1713.1-2843].

-Mike

Very nice -- just shows how active (and deadly) the region is.

Putting it all into context:

Click to view attachment

(The M101 image is on the wall opposite the new Galactic Center image at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.)

I still think the observations of the orbits of the stars tracking around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is one of the most fascinating results from the whole history of astronomy. The vast majority of the observable Universe beyond our solar system is essentially unchanged over the span of a single lifetime in terms of movement anyway, yet here we have managed to build up a picture of multiple stars whizzing around the black hole in just a few short years.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/pi...erImage08.shtml

There is a link to the animation at the bottom of this page.