The Young Stellar Cluster IC348
These images show the deep ROSAT X-ray view of the young stellar cluster IC348 in the Perseus molecular cloud complex.
The first is the full image of the ROSAT PSPC observation (radius 1 degree), where the dense cluster of X-ray sources can be seen. In our detailed analysis we detected more than 100 X-ray sources (for further information see Dr. Thomas Preibisch's A&A paper ).
The next two images show the central region (about 20 times 20 arcmin) of IC348. The upper image is a true color ROSAT X-ray image, the lower one is an optical image of about the same region.
The next two images show the central region of IC348. The image on the left was taken with the PSPC detector, and one can see that the density of X-ray sources is so high that significant blending occurres. The image on the right shows the same field but was taken with the HRI detector which has a considerably better spatial resolution and produced a much ``sharper''image.
The strongest source in the PSPC image is the T Tauri star LHalpha 92 that displayed a giant X-ray flare during this observation (see the abstract of Dr. Thomas Preibisch's A&A paper on this flare). The next image shows true colour images of the central region at one time interval before the flare (left) and another interval during the flare (right). At its maximum count rate during the flare, LHalpha 92 was more than 100 times higher than before the flare. The blue colour of the flare source indicates a very high plasma temperatures (up to 50 million degrees) during this event.
From Dr. Thomas Preibisch, Astronomisches Institut, Würzburg, Germany.
Curator:
HEASARC Guest Observer Facility
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