R 136a in the 30 Doradus nebula resolved by holographic speckle interferometry

Weigelt, G., Baier, G.

Astronomy and Astrophysics 150, L18 (1985)

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Abstract
Digital speckle interferometry observations of R136, the luminous central object in the 30 Doradus nebula have been performed. It was possible to reconstruct a diffraction-limited true image of R136a by using R136b and R136c as the deconvolution keys (holographic speckle interferometry). The reconstructed image shows for the first time that R136a is a dense star cluster consisting of 8 stars within a diameter of 1 arcsec (at wavelength approximately 710 nm). The dominating objects are three stars of almost identical magnitudes with separations of 0.10 and 0.48 arcsec. The reconstructed image has a resolution of 0.09 arcsec.

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