This image shows an area of the observations of the galactic bulge, made by the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope. An emission nebula, known as G000.583-00.870, is visible in red. This nebula is a cloud formed of ionised gases that were send out by massive stars that recently formed in a spiral arm of the Milky Way.
The area is zoomed in ten times compared to the full image.
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[Image description: A dense field of tiny, closely packed points of light fills the image. The background is mostly dark, with countless small white and yellow points spread evenly across it. Near the centre, a brighter, irregular reddish area stands out, with several lighter patches clustered together. A few slightly bluish points are scattered across the scene, contrasting with the warmer colours.]
Technical details:
The Euclid galactic bulge survey was conducted in early 2025 using Euclid’s optical camera VIS (monochromatic, one colour). These are first and foremost Euclid images, defined by Euclid’s crisp resolution and spectacularly wide field of view; the colours were added using observations captured in the summer of 2025 with the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope's MegaCam camera (CFHT-Megacam) in Hawai’i. The colours captured by MegaCam are in optical light through three broad-band filters (u, g, and r) overlapping the very broad VIS band over the r-band. The appearance of the most luminous stars in these images looks different than those generated from Euclid-only images, with additional diffraction spikes and a subtle halo around the very bright stars. This a consequence of combining Euclid VIS data, for their sensitivity and sharpness, and CFHT-MegaCam for the colours. Subtle differences in optical design of the two telescopes become apparent for the brighter objects.