Part of the Supernova in Vela Wall Poster

About 120 centuries ago an inconspicious star in the constellation of Vela suddenly brightened by about a million times to rival the moon as the brightest object in the night sky. This photograph shows a small part of a huge, expanding nebulous shell which now surrounds the site of the explosion. Near the center of the nebula (not seen here) is the Vela pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star only a few kilometers in diameter, the remnant of the star that exploded. The tiny object spins about eleven times a second and is among the faintest stars ever studied, a far cry from it’s brief glory as one of the brighest ever seen. The green line is the trail of an earth-orbiting satellite that crossed the field of view during the exposure of the green-light plate that used to make the color picture.

This picture was made from a series of three photographic plates taken at the prime focus of the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope located on Siding Spring Mountain, New South Wales, Australia. The photograph was produced by combining images taken separately in red, green, and blue light. This complex process was necessary because color films are not sensitive enough to record very faint objects. This picture is an accurate reflection of the colors of the Universe, much as the eye might see them if it could be made a million times more sensitive.

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