Letter to the Editor

VLT/NACO infrared adaptive optics images of small scale structures in OMC1^*

¹ LESIA – Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, UMR 8109 CNRS, 92195 Meudon, France e-mail: francois.lacombe@obspm.fr; daniel.rouan@obspm.fr
² Institute for Physics and Astronomy, Århus University, 8000 Århus C, Denmark e-mail: dfield@phys.au.dk
³ LERMA – Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, UMR 8112 CNRS, 92195 Meudon, France e-mail: jean-louis.lemaire@obspm.fr
⁴ Université de Cergy-Pontoise, 95031 Cergy Cedex, France
⁵ LAOG – Observatoire de Grenoble, UMR 5571 CNRS, 38041, Grenoble, France
⁶ ONERA – DOTA, 92322 Châtillon, France
⁷ GEPI – Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, UMR 8111 CNRS, 92195 Meudon, France

Corresponding author: D. Rouan, daniel.rouan@obspm.fr

Received: 18 March 2003
Accepted: 3 July 2003

Abstract

Near-infrared observations of line emission from excited H₂ and in the continuum are reported in the direction of the Orion molecular cloud OMC1, using the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope UT4, equipped with the NAOS adaptive optics system on the CONICA infrared array camera. Spatial resolution has been achieved at close to the diffraction limit of the telescope () and images show a wealth of morphological detail. Structure is not fractal but shows two preferred scale sizes of (1100 AU) and (540 AU), where the larger scale may be associated with star formation.