Quasar 3C273

[CoombellKid]

Here's a lil challenge for some, a revisit for others, charts included

Should easily be obtainable with an 8" newt from rural skies :)
sitting at around 12.8(var) magnitude

This object is approx' 1.9 billion lyrs away, although I have seen
later estimates of up to 2.9 billion lyrs away. You can sit and
wonder what was happening on Earth at the time the light thats
hitting your retna started it's journey, molecular life was yet to
begin.

So when someone asks what the most distance thing you have seen
through your scope, you throw the above figures at them ;)


regards,CS

Rob

[mickoking]

Thanx for that Rob

3C 273 is an awsome object. While you are starring at this object just try to comprehend how far 2 Billion light years away is? and it is moving away from us at 23% the speed of light (I will check that figure).

The Quasar can bee seen from an urban location with a 250mm Dob quite easily and with a 120mm refractor with patience.

A must see object :thumbsup:

[Starkler]

Thanks Rob !

Now if only these clouds will dissapear I'll have a look for it at RA 12h 29.1m , Dec. +2°03'.

Seds states that this object has a luminosity approximately 100 times that of our entire milky way galaxy :eyepop:

[[1ponders]]

Thank Rob :thumbsup:

[astroron]

I made an observing report on this object last year, without receiving one comment?:screwy:

[CoombellKid]

NP's guy's enjoy... there's a hol'lota chaos going over there :)




One of things that really amazes me with astronomy is un-imaginable
distances at which objects are located. And be able to see them from
my own backyard :D

regards,CS

Rob

[mickoking]

I know the feeling :(

Rob states that 3C 273 is variable. When I last viewed it on the 21st of may the mag was 12.4. Its amazing when you think of the processes that create that variability, huge chunks of gas being ripped from stars and brightening in the massive accreation disc surrounding an object smaller than our solar system.

Strewth :eyepop:

[mickoking]

3C 273 is moving away from us at 16% the speed of light, 47840000 metres per sec (47840 KM/S)

............and accelerating.

[CoombellKid]

While I was out last night revisiting 3C 273 and thinking of the fact that is
moving away from us at 16% the speed of light, 47840000 metres per sec
(47840 KM/S) as mentioned above. Then light traveling from 3C 273 to
my retina must be traveling at 86% of the speed of light, right? :shrug:
As would be the case say if we were instead located on the opposite side
of 3C 273 so it was traveling towards us at 16% the speed of light. Then
light from 3C 273 would be hitting my retina at the speed of light plus 16%
and not taking into account that we now know or suspect that the speed
of light is variable.

Anyone have any thoughts on this

regards,CS

Rob

[Starkler]

That makes sense considering that the distance measurement was made by extrapolating from the observed red shift in spectra.

Whether by some quirk of physics the speed of light is always a constant for the observer, I do not know.

[janoskiss]

Light always travels at the speed of light (300 million metres / second) regardless of the motion of the observer or the source! This is the basis of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. And this is why, by our everyday experience, weird things happen when things travel fast. Time slows down, lengths contract etc. This is why clocks on satellites run just a little slower, and also why Charlton Heston ages only a few months in the space ship while human civilisation has time to collapse as apes rise to rule the world. ;)

Thanks Rob!! That is a hell of a long way away!! :eyepop: I'll check it out as soon as the clouds bugger off.

That is just mind blowing!

[Starkler]

I just did a comparison between Robs map and CDC and noticed a few things.

Firstly, I would never be able to find and positively identify this without the map as my CDC catalogue only goes down to mag12.

Secondly, Robs map seems to be flipped in both vertical and horizontal planes, meaning the map will represent the eyepiece view in a newtonian :cool:

Thirdly, at this time its highest in the sky at around 7pm , so get out there early ;)

[CoombellKid]

We're not disputing the spead light travels at. The very fact that it has
a speed limit mean it is also restricted to having to take time to travel
from one location to another. Hence if it is fired from an object moving
away from us that is also doing 16% of the speed of light. It seems
logical that it must have some impact on it's speed relative to say
an inanimate object in space, however it would be doing the speed of
light relative to the position and motion of 3C 273 at the time it was fired.

logical?

regards,CS

Rob

[CoombellKid]

Thanks Geoff,

This is true the charts were designed as view through an EP on a newt.
I originally was using a wide angle ep to star hop to 3C 273 via Gamma
Virginis taking in galaxies NGC 4527 & 4536

regards,CS

Rob

[janoskiss]

Light travels at the same speed relative to all frames of reference: you, the quasar other objects moving however fast in whatever direction. They all see the same speed for the same beam of light. There is no adding or subtracting or otherwise combining the speeds of the light the source and the observer, like you might think. The speed is the same for all! It goes against everyday "common sense" but "common sense" is plain wrong in this case, or to put it more eloquently: "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen" (Albert Einstein).

Light travels the same speed with respect to all frames of reference irrespective of their motion. This is a most revealing observation and shocks people when they comprehend the meaning of this statement for the first time, but that's how nature does it. :)

[mickoking]

While 3C 273 is moving away from us at 16% the speed of light, the light from the Quasar is still travelling to Earth at 100% the speed of light (299000KM/S). However the light is 'stretched' into a longer wavelength which is known as Redshift.

[Astrolabe]

Dear fellow members, Steve is correct. If anyone is interested for a further explanation / clarification, the following references may be consulted. They require late high school / early tertiary mathematics. They are arranged in order of increasing mathematical difficulty.

1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol I, Feynman, Leighton, Sands, Pearson / Addison Wesley
2. Gravity from the ground up, an introductory guide to gravity and special relativity, Bernard Schultz, Cambridge.
3. Gravity, An introduction to Einstein's general relativity, James B. Hartle, Addison Wesley

And by the way, if anyone thinks that special relativity is common non-sensical he or she should look up quantum mechanics. Very interesting aspects of quantum mechanics are its statistical nature, the dual nature of light, the wave nature of matter and especially the Uncertainty Principle. But do not dispair, even the founders of quantum mechanics clearly state that no body can understand it, that is from the common sense point of view.


George

[mickoking]

I have enclosed a hubble pic of 3C273. As you can see the Quasar totally outshines it's host galaxy.

[Suzy]

I'm Interested in going after this.

Has anyone viewed this thru a 10 inch dob from suburbia?

What do you make out?

[pgc hunter]

Hi Suzy, It's about mag 12.8 so will be visible in a 10". It'll look exactly like a star so you'll need detailed charts of the area to positively identify it.

[clive milne]

A bit more on the speed of light.... (this may bend your brain a little)

From a photon's perspective, the distance it travels could be stated as the linear distance between the point of emission and absorption multiplied by 1 divided by infinity... ie) zero.
The time it takes to do this journey (at the speed of light) is again, zero.
If you wanted to describe that as a velocity, ie) distance covered per unit of time, the answer would be zero divided by zero... it is meaningless trying to describe it this way.

Another way to say it is that the Universe has no size or time dimensions for an object travelling at the speed of light.

For all intents and purposes, the photon is a waveform that exists complete in its entirety, then collapses. It is not like a bullet that flies between two points, even though we experience it like that from our distorted frame of reference.

caveat: I may have mangled the language a little, but I believe the core of the principle explained above is essentially correct.
~c

[bojan]

Now that you mentioned this reference, I've read some parts of the book, and I was puzzled by the treatment of significance of pressure, resulting from length dilation (I posted my questions on the forum earlier, can't find the thread now).
What puzzled me was that I always thought the dilation is caused by changing of the metric of space-time of the moving object from our reference.. and there could be no pressure increase as a result, but according to the above book, it isn't, and there is a pressure, energy associated with it and so on..
Some people commented that we can even have a spontaneous nuclear fusion as a result of this pressure.. which is not something I would ever think as feasible.

Or is it just an inappropriate extrapolation/speculation from basic principles by the author (Bernard Schultz)?
Could someone elaborate on this?

EDIT: I found the thread:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=67651&highlight=gravity


EDIT2:
I am re-reading the thread and the links provided in the comments of others.. I forgot 98% of all that since first reading when thread was active...

[Suzy]

Aaaah... was hoping to see the squiggle, but never mind, just seeing the Quasar in itself will be very special. Thanks Sab. ;)
Could be challenging, but I have my new Stellarview finder now to help me, yaaaay! :D Oooh and the Night Sky Observers Guide. So all set. :thumbsup:



Bojan, re-resurrecting old threads are great to do indeed as so much to learn that's just buried there hey!.