VIRCAM’s pawprint

Although it is hard to believe, this raw image, straight from the instrument, was used together with many others to produce the beautiful photo of the Orion Nebula on this page. VIRCAM includes 16 independent infrared detectors. Because of technical constraints, these detectors cannot be installed next to each other, resulting in large gaps between them. In order to obtain a full coverage of the field of view, a series of images is taken, moving the telescope between each exposure. All the images are then combined. The images taken with astronomical instruments are always monochromatic: the information on the colour is is obtained by taking exposures through different coloured glass filters.