A star is born - British camera captures fantastic space images.STUNNING pictures of blazing young stars in the constellation of Orion have been obtained by a British telescope equipped with the world's most powerful infrared camera. The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope UKIRT, the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope, is a 3.8 metre (150 inch) infrared reflecting telescope, the largest dedicated infrared (1 to 30 micrometre) telescope in the world. It is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo and located on Mauna Kea (Hawai'i). (UKIRT) has just started operating on the Hawaiian mountain of Mauna Kea, using its new Wide Field Camera (WFCAM). Built at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre The UK Astronomy Technology Centre is based at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland. in Edinburgh, the WFCAM has a larger field of view than any other astronomical infrared camera in the world. The camera has been trained on a region of star formation in the Orion constellation about 1, 500 light years away. The images cover an area 3, 600 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope is capable of seeing. Professor Gary David, director of the Joint Astronomy Centre, which operates the UKIRT and the James Clerk Maxwell telescope The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) is a 15-metre submillimetre-wavelength telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. It is the largest astronomical telescope in the world designed specifically to operate in the submillimetre regime (between the far-infrared and the in Hawaii, said: ``These stunning images are a testament to the hard work of everyone involved, and we now look forward to several years of exciting scientific discoveries. '' CAPTION(S): The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope has produced stunning images of blazing young stars in the constellation of Orion |
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