ChrisM
09-05-2013, 12:08 AM
A few weeks ago I found our closest neighbour - Proxima Centauri and posted an image on here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=105751.
Tonight, I imaged one of the (if not THE) most distant object readily found by amateur telescopes: Quasar 3C273 in Virgo.
Intrinsically, it is one of the brightest objects in the sky, but from nearly 2.5 BILLION light years away, we see it as a Mag 12.9 star-like object. The energy that it radiates is powered by a massive black hole and associated accretion disk. The light arriving at my telescope tonight left the quasar before the Earth was half as old as it is now.
Image: 90 secs @ ISO 1600
FoV ~ 22 arc mins
Chris
Tonight, I imaged one of the (if not THE) most distant object readily found by amateur telescopes: Quasar 3C273 in Virgo.
Intrinsically, it is one of the brightest objects in the sky, but from nearly 2.5 BILLION light years away, we see it as a Mag 12.9 star-like object. The energy that it radiates is powered by a massive black hole and associated accretion disk. The light arriving at my telescope tonight left the quasar before the Earth was half as old as it is now.
Image: 90 secs @ ISO 1600
FoV ~ 22 arc mins
Chris