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ART-XC telescope working as expected, continues observing the center of the Galaxy

Russian telescope ART-XC onboard the Spektr-RG space observatory continues observing the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The new images confirm all the seven telescope detectors are working as expected.

Pic. 1

The summarized image in 5-16 keV range can be seen in the left part of Pic. 1, the image was cumulated during a 1 hour 20 minutes exposure. A complex of molecular clouds of the center of the Milky Way can be clearly seen here, which is placed in close proximity of the supermassive black hole – Sagittarius A* source. To the right is the mosaics made up from the images shot by the NuSTAR X-Ray telescope during a 40-hour observation period.

Despite a short exposure period (less than 2 hours), all the known objects of the central part of the Galaxy can be seen clearly: the molecular skies complex, Arc star cluster, some X-Ray sources from the NuSTAR overlook, etc.

Pic. 2

The image from the ART-XC Russian telescope was received via summarizing the photos made by all the seven detectors. Pic. 2 shows the seven initial images indicating all the detectors are working fine.

Pic. 3

In the left part of pic. 3 there is the area near center of the Galaxy, to the right – the area near the Sagittarius A* source. The intense source in the center of the right image is the superposition of the diffusive source emission (molecular cloud) and the supermassive black hole. The “rippling” in the right corner is the cluttering of the detector by the photons emitted by the bright X-Ray burster A7142-294, which is located outside the telescope range of vision.

The Spektr-RG was launched on July 13, 2019 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft is now on its way towards the L2 Sun – Earth system libration point with the arrival to the working orbit expected in the end of October 2019.