NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

This figure shows a Very Large Array 90cm image of 40 square degrees of the inner Galactic plane. This image covers about 200 times the area of the full moon and has a resolution of 42 seconds of arc (about the angular size of Jupiter viewed from Earth). The most prominent sources are the ionized HII regions that form around massive stars and supernova remnants which are leftover from the death throes of massive stars. From a variety of diagnostics including the number of massive stars in our Galaxy, there should be many more supernova remnants than are currently known. The purpose of this project was to overcome the observational selection effects such as poor sensitivity and resolution that have long been assumed to be responsible for the dearth of observed supernova remnants. From this very high fidelity image we have been able to discover 35 previously unknown remnants, a 300% increase for this region of the plane and an overall 15% increase in the total known in the Galaxy. It has only recently become possible to create such high fidelity images at low radio frequencies (where supernova remnants are brightest) due to significant software improvements and increased computing power.

Investigator(s):  Crystal Brogan (NRAO), Yosi Gelfand (CfA), Bryan Gaensler (CfA), Namir Kassim (NRL), Joe Lazio (NRL)

Alternate Resolutions

Help

This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 900 x 182 Color JPEG
• 1800 x 364 Color JPEG
• 4721 x 954 Color TIFF

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Journal article
• Up one level for more info on Supernova_Remnants
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLA
Date of Observation	2004-05-11
Type of Observation	Continuum Observations
Band	P
Wavelength	90 cm
Frequency	330 MHz
Center of Image	RA: 18:13:53.00, Dec: -17:39:43.00 (J2000)
Field of View	16.0000 x 2.5000 degrees
Technical Caption	This image was created from fourteen separate VLA pointings and is comprised of D, C, and B configuration data. An image of each pointing was created using wide-field and multiscale cleaning algorithms in AIPS and mosaicked together in the image plane using FLATN. The resolution of the final image is 42 arcsecond and it is sensitive to structures up to 50 arcminute in size.



Astronomical database entries for Galactic Plane
• Query SIMBAD for more Galactic Plane data

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