NGC 4449 has been forming stars for several billion years, but currently it is experiencing a star formation event at a much higher rate than in the past. At the current rate, the gas supply that feeds the stellar production would only last for another billion years or so. The hot, new young stars are illuminating the surrounding gas in a beautiful display. Pink regions represent ionized hydrogen gas, and blue regions represent ionized oxygen gas.
Image:
Details:
Data was taken from the following proposals: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10585, https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=10522
Red: HST_10522_01_ACS_WFC_F660N_sci + HST_10585_03_ACS_WFC_F658N_sci
Green: HST_10585_03_ACS_WFC_F658N_sci + HST_10522_01_ACS_WFC_F550M_sci
Blue: HST_10522_01_ACS_WFC_F502N_sci1Processing
- Channel combination
- Generalized Hyperbolic stretch
- MMT noise reduction
- Curves transformation