The Abell 397 cluster of galaxies, imaged at the Vatican Advanced Technlology Telescope by Matt Nelson in 2001, combining a set of four V(green) filter, five R (red) filter and seven B (blue) filter images taken over the course of about an hour. The history of each filter is recorded in the trail of an asteroid moving right to left from the center of the picture: seen in at first green, then red, then blue filters.

Image by Brucker,Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno

A massive star can erupt into a supernova and become a nebula like the Crab Nebula, imaged at the VATT by Fr.Richard Boyle S.J.

Planetary Nebula M27, the Dumbbell Nebula; image by Matt Nelson, taken at the VATT.

The Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, in Aquarius, which is 700 light years from us; imaged by Brucker, Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on Mt. Graham, Arizona.

One of the more famous “bodies” in the sky is the Horsehead Nebula. It is a dark cloud that shadows the light of an emission nebula behind it. The “unicorn’s horn” in this image is due to a bright star just out of the field of view. Image taken by Brucker, Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno at the VATT.

The globular cluster M2 as imaged at the VATT by Melissa Brucker and Bill Romanishin of the University of Oklahoma, Steve Tegler of Northern Arizona University, and Br. Guy Consolmagno S.J.of the Vatican Observatory.

M03 Globular Cluster, observed May 31->June 9, 2008, by Richard Boyle, compositor Jonathan Stott.
The image is a composite of the P, V, and S filters, and exposures range from 60 seconds to 20 minutes.

NGC 2903, a galaxy of about a billion stars some 80,000 light years in diameter, is located 20 million lightyears from us. Note the faint blue arms extending out from each side of the spiral’s center; the central regions have an unusual amount of star formation. This image was made at the VATT by Brucker, Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno.

Asteroid Pholus captured first in red, then green, then blue, as separate exposures were made of the galaxy. Image by Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno

On October 15 and 17, 2009, R. Boyle and J. Stott with their collaborators made deep exposures in eight filters at VATT in this star-forming region of the Pelican Nebula. From three of the filtered exposures Stott formed this color composite picture which highlights the "bright rim" edge on the right formed by dust and gas cloud obscuring background stars.

The Ring Nebula of Lyra, M57, 2300 light years away,as imaged at the VATT by Matt Nelson of the University of Virginia.

Image by Brucker,Romanishin, Tegler, and Consolmagno

Sombrero Galaxy (M104), observed on June 16, 2004 with the VATT_2K camera, by Richard Boyle.
Image composed by Jonathan Stoff from exposures of 2 to 10 minutes in a red=S filter, green=V filter, andblue=P filter.

Comet P/2010 A2 Linear, observed by Rolf Jansens of ASU at VATT on March 21, 2010.
This is a composite image, as is clear from the fast moving object (the comet) with a dotted trail. It made from images in B (blue), V (green), and R (red).