The Open Cluster Westerlund 1 in the Infrared

The  Open Cluster Westerlund 1 in the Infrared
From the 2Mass Image Gallery
Atlas Image mosaic, covering 13.0« by 13.0« on the sky, of the compact open cluster Westerlund 1. The cluster is located in the southern Milky Way in Ara and is heavily reddened, behind nearly 13 magnitudes of visual extinction , making it one of the most reddened known open clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. Piatti et al., from optical photometry, determined that this massive cluster is at a distance of about 1.1 kpc (nearly 3600 light years), contains several intrinsically luminous stars, and has an age of about 8 Myr. Image mosaic by S. Van Dyk (IPAC).
This image is a three-band composites constructed from 2MASS Atlas Images. They are infrared images and therefore must be mapped into false colors: J light (1.2 µm) into blue, H light (1.6 µm) in green, and Ks light (2.2 µm) into red. The Atlas Images are produced in the 2MASS Production Processing System. North is up and east is to the left.
The text is based on accompanying on-line materials.

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 Last Modified On: Saturday, February 24, 2001