Omega Centauri Above GranTeCan

An interesting part of the constellation Centaurus appears in this telephoto view from the top of La Palma, Canary Islands, home to one of the world’s premiere astronomical observatories. In the foreground is the GTC or the GranTeCan telescope, currently the world’s largest optical-infrared single-aperture telescope (10.40 m aperture). Move the slider on the image to see 100% crops of remarkable deep sky objects in the view including the Omega Centauri cluster in the center, the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way, home to several million stars. From the southern hemisphere or the lower northern hemisphere latitudes such as the Canaries the cluster is easily visible to unaided eyes like a single star.