Hi Rob & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob_K
... I think we're going to have to have a little talk about your galaxy obsession, LOL!   ... |
Yeah, well I'm not going to try and defend myself on that point -- I do love them. The really faint, distant, difficult edge-on's are the best of all.
Beleive me though, I do look at other things and some of them are even bright objects!
One of the many things I personally enjoy about the really distant objects is the concept of "time-travel" -- in effect. For instance with IC 1942 in Pt 1, it has a recessional velocity of +18,340. Using this and assuming a Hubble Constant (H subscript "o") of 70km/sec/Mpc we get +18340 / 70 = 262 Mpc and multiplying by 3.26 (light-years in a parsec) we get a distance of 854.1 million light-years.
This is well and truly pre-cambrian times when the Earth looked "a bit different" -- to say the least. The only land-plants back then was a bit of pond-scum and some lichen. The rest was rocks, dirt and water. To me it is fascinating and awe-inspiring that the light you are looking at from this tiny, faint galaxy left its source when the Earth looked so dramatically different and spent nearly (in context) a billion years tearing across the cold reaches of intergalactic space just to hit my telescope mirror and form an image. I think about what the ground around me must have been like 850 million years ago and what has happened since then.
Really, if that isn't awe-inspiring, I dunno what is. Makes me feel a bit special anyway.
Thanks for the comment!
Best,
Les D