Date: 11 Aug 2010
Satellite: INTEGRAL
Depicts: Galactic Plane
Copyright: Krivonos, R., et al., A&A, in press (10.1051/0004-6361/200913814), 2010, reproduced with permission © ESO.

This image is a map of a region near the Galactic Plane, acquired with IBIS/ISGRI on board INTEGRAL, and covering the 17-60 keV energy band. The total exposure is of about 20 million seconds in the region of the Galactic Centre, the central area of the map.

The alternating image shows the difference in results achieved by using the previous sky reconstruction method and the improved, newly developed algorithm: all strong systematic artefacts mimicking extended structures on the sky are removed with the new method, which returns a much more uniform sky background and highlights the presence of several faint, previously undetected sources.

The two individual images from this animation are also available separately from the right-hand menu under "related images".