Colour rendering of Tarantula Nebula in LMC

This image is a composite of three narrow-band filter exposures of the famous Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) in our closest neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The filters are centred on the 2.166 micron Br-gamma line of atomic hydrogen (blue); the 1.644 micron [FeII] line (green) and the 2.12 micron 1-0 S(1) line of molecular hydrogen (red). The colour coding reflects the ionization state of the gas. The scale is 0.26 arcsec/pixel and the field is 4.5x4.5 arcmin with North at the top and East to the left. (Colour composite by F. Selman).