PIA20347: Versatile Instrument to Scout for Kuiper Belt Objects
This image of the Crab Pulsar was taken with CHIMERA, an instrument at the Palomar Observatory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology.
 Instrument:  CHIMERA 
 Product Size:  1007 x 1020 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA20347.tif (3.083 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA20347.jpg (105.7 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This image of the Crab Pulsar was taken with CHIMERA, an instrument on the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology.

This pulsar is the end result of a star whose mass collapsed at the end of its life. It weighs as much as our sun, but spins 32 times per second. The instrument focused on the pulsar for a 300-second exposure to produce a color image.

CHIMERA zoomed in on the pulsar and imaged it very fast, then imaged the rest of the scene slowly to create this image.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2016-03-03