IRAS LRS spectra of extended objects: The Crab nebula

The spectra of extended sources from the raw Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) Low Resolution Spectrometer (LRS) data, is recovered by means of a nonlinear deconvolution technique built around a maximum entropy algorithm. The results are applied to the Crab Nebula. The deconvolved spectrum of the Crab shows significant departures from a blackbody spectrum, with emission features present at 10.2, 11.3, 12.3 and 12.8 microns.