Astronomers using ArTeMiS, a new instrument installed on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment – a 12-m diameter telescope in the Atacama Desert, have captured a spectacularly detailed view of the star formation region NGC 6334, also known as the Cat’s Paw Nebula or Bear Claw Nebula.
This image shows the Cat’s Paw Nebula. Image credit: ArTeMiS team / Ph. André, M. Hennemann, V. Revéret et al / ESO / J. Emerson / VISTA. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.
ArTeMiS is a new wide-field submillimeter-wavelength camera that will be a major addition to APEX’s suite of instruments and further increase the depth and detail that can be observed.
The new generation detector array of ArTeMIS acts more like a CCD camera than the previous generation of detectors. This will let wide-field maps of the sky be made faster and with many more pixels.
To test the instrument, astronomers had to wait for very dry weather as the submillimetre wavelengths of light that ArTeMiS observes are very strongly absorbed by water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere. When the time came, successful test observations were made.
One of these targets was the Cat’s Paw Nebula in the southern constellation of Scorpius.
Discovered by astronomer John Herschel in 1837, the nebula lies at a distance of about 5,500 light-years from Earth.
The new ArTeMiS image of the Cat’s Paw Nebula is significantly better than earlier APEX images of the same region.
