English: Most of star cluster R136 in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The image is approximately 40 arc seconds across (about 35 light years).

Selected bright stars are annotated, using names from Massey, P ; Hunter, D., (January 1998), "Star Formation in R136: A Cluster of O3 Stars Revealed by Hubble Space Telescope Spectroscopy", The Astrophysical Journal 493 (1): 180, doi:10.1086/306503) (spectral type in parentheses):

2 = Mk42 (O3)

4 = R134 (WN6 with H)

7 = Mk39 (O3)

8 = Mk34 (WN4.5 with H

12 = Mk35 (O3)

15 = Mk30 (O3)

16 = Mk33 (O3 If*)

18 = Mk33S (O3 III(f*))

23 = Mk35S (O3 III(f*))

37 (O3 III(f*))

43 (O3 V)

MK14 = H96-28 (O3 III(f*))

MK14N = H96-59 (O5 V(f))

The central blob is the compact star cluster R136a, about seven light years across, which contains at least 12 giant stars, among them R136a1 and R136a2 (not resolved in this image).

The original image was based on observations made on 10 February 2002 and 22 March 2003 with the FORS1 multi-mode instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in three different narrow-band filters (centred on 485 nm, 503 nm, and 657 nm), for a total exposure time slightly above 3 minutes only. The data were extracted from the ESO Science Archive and processed by Henri Boffin (ESO).