Galactic Center at 4 microns

This image shows the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy in the infrared at 4.05 microns, centered around the Brackett Alpha emission line. Despite being a combination of 42 separate frames, each separately calibrated for sky emission, the final picture still has a mean FWHM averaged over 24 stars of only 0.24 arc seconds. This image was obtained with the Abu thermal infrared camera built by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, on the Gemini South 8-meter telescope, and is an improved version of the image shown as part of the telescope commissioning and dedication.