Comparison of WFPC-1 and WFPC-2
Depicts: Melnick 34
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The three panels show images of a very bright (Wolf-Rayet) star, Melnick 34, located in the giant star-forming region called 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the background are a number of fainter stars that are comparable in brightness to our Sun.
For imaging these kinds of objects there were no doubt that the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was far superior to any of the ground-based telescopes with it's advanced WFPC instrument (compare the image on the left and the one in the middle). However the results from the HST was improved greatly to provide the scientific world with even better data when the WFPC-2 instrument was installed during the first servicing mission.
For a detailed desciption of each image, please see the press release by clicking the link below.
Last Update: 1 September 2019