K.O. Mason 2004
A colour image of the Lockman Hole deep field taken with the Optical/UV Monitor telescope on the XMM-Newton observatory. The image was taken in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, at wavelengths shorter than those visible to the naked eye. The colours of the stars and galaxies betray their temperature, with the blue objects being the hottest, and the red ones being the coolest. The faintest stars on the image have a brightness that is more than a million times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye.
The image is a mosaic of several offset pointings giving a field of view of 22.00 x 16.00 arcmin. The colours are derived from the signal seen through various XMM-OM filters, with red corresponding to U-band (350nm), green to the UVW1 band (280nm), and blue a combination of the UVM2 (220nm) and UVW2 (200nm) bands. The limiting magnitude is approximately 22.
Data and image courtsey of K.O.Mason (MSSL), G.Hasinger (MPE) & the Lockman Hole team.