The COMPTEL Gamma-Ray Sky

Explanation: This premier gamma-ray view of the sky was produced by the COMPTEL instrument onboard NASA's orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory . The entire sky is seen projected on a coordinate system centered on our Milky Way Galaxy with the plane of the Galaxy running across the middle of the picture. Gamma-ray intensity is represented by a false color map - low (blue) to high (white). COMPTEL's sensitivity to gamma-rays which have over 1 million times the energy of visible light photons reveals the locations of some of the Galaxy's most exotic objects. The brightest source, the Crab pulsar , is located near the plane of the Galaxy on the far right. Moving along the plane from the Crab, more than halfway toward the galactic center, another bright gamma-ray source, the Vela pulsar , appears. The galactic center itself, along with the famous black hole candidate Cygnus X-1 (near the plane, halfway from the center to the left edge) are also seen as bright sources. Both above and below the plane, spots of gamma-ray emission due to distant active galaxies are also visible.