Hubble Deep Field South

[rogerg]

Yes, you read right: HDF-S

Some might remember that several months ago I asked about the RA and DEC of HDF-S. Well, I have now finished my first imaging run, before I change my setup a little to continue more.

Total exposure time used for the current final image: 39,000 seconds + 18,000 seconds of dark frames.

Total exposure time captured: 63,600 seconds. (I was quite strict about what I included, not wanting to degrade the quality).

Remembering it is winter (lots of that wet stuff falling from the sky) it's taken me since mid July to actually get those images. Lucky I can run the stuff automated or it would've taken a lot longer (you don't get many images in one night when each is 40 minutes!)

Anyway...

The final image isn't particularly great quality, but what do you expect for a FOV where there's supposed to be nothing? But I am happy with the result, and really enjoyed the whole experience of finding and imaging HDF-S. A great way to fill in 3 months :lol:

I count 30 objects in the FOV quite comfortably, possibly more but for the sake of erring on the side of caution I stopped at 30.

See the whole lot here:
http://www.rogergroom.com/rogergroom/esh_rog_gallery.jsp?Item=418

Direct to the image:
http://www.rogergroom.com/rogergroom/esh_rog_item.jsp?Item=419
Direct to my article on it:
http://www.rogergroom.com/rogergroom/esh_rog_item.jsp?Item=420
Enjoy!

Roger.

:thumbsup:

[beren]

:thumbsup: what a interesting goal to go for, fine work

[Lee]

Great work.... you have more patience than I have! :D

[mickoking]

Awsome stuff Roger :thumbsup: Do you have any distance info for the galaxies you imaged?

[janoskiss]

What great effort and what a wonderful result! Have you a rough idea how far those galaxies are?

[Lester]

Hi Roger,

Well done. This may be a first from any Earth base telescope. Glad you have got auto tracking. The results are amazing. Be interesting to know what magnitude some of these fuzzies are.

[rogerg]

Hey guy's,

Thanks for the replies, good to get them after all this effort :)

I unfortunately have no data (distance, magnitude, size etc) of any objects in the FOV. I hunted and hunted but couldn't find catalogue numbers or anything. If anyone can find out, I'm dieing to know what magnitude they are, at the very least.

Roger.

[sheeny]

Excellent work Roger! Great to see such perseverance!

Al.

[rogerg]

One comment I forgot to reply to - Lester, there have been ground based images taken of the area by the pro observatories, but I have only seen wide field ones, not a serious attempt at reproducing the image. Interesting.

I suspect they are out there, just not easily found on the web.

There has been quite a bit of radio observation performed from ground based equipment of the area I believe, that was one thing I found.

I suspect that with budgets and priorities and all that, it's hard to justify a pro setup spending time imaging a FOV that hubble has already done better than they could anyway, where as radio is different.

Roger.

[ving]

woah! great stuff roger!

[mickoking]

I suspect some of those galaxies on the image are a fair way towards the edge of the known universe :thumbsup: Just before WW2 the edge of the (known) universe was only a bit over 200 million light years, I am sure your image beats that 20 fold plus.

[rogerg]

Yes... that's one thing that "blows my mind" about this whole scenario: I'm only a lowly amateur astronomer using pretty average gear, yet I'm seeing galaxies that are quite possibly near the edge of the universe?!?! as Ving said, "woah!". Amazing stuff.

No matter how far or close they are relative to the furthest known, they are still so faint and distant....

Roger.

[rogerg]

Hi all,

A little update on my HDFS project. I have been in contact with a member of the HDFS team, getting some help on identifying the objects in the FOV. I was happy to hear he'd didn't know of any other amateur ever trying the HDFS and was impressed at what objects I managed to acquire.

While I still haven't managed to match up object for object to find exact magnitudes of the 30 objects I can clearly see, I do know that the 30 most bright objects in the FOV are rated at magnitudes between Mag 18.8 and Mag 22.5138. Of those 30 only 3 are brighter than Mag 20 and 7 are as faint or fainter than Mag 22.0884.

Interesting stuff!

Over the next few days I hope to accurately match object to object, achieving a match for what magnitude each object in my image is. He's given me the info to do it, I just need to do some database work to get the results I want.

Also interesting: To achieve Mag 23 I need another 16 objects. The faintest object in the HDFS is rated at Mag 33.5551.

Gez I love this faint fuzzy stuff, it's a good challenge.

The magnitudes quoted are on the AB magnitude scale, not the scale where the star Vega has mag=0. I'm yet to determine exactly what he means by that and hence what the actual difference is between these mag values and the mag values us amateur astronomers typically use.

Roger.

[mickoking]

WOW manitude 22+ nothing to be sneezed at :thumbsup: brilliant.

[Heian]

Fantastic Roger, :thumbsup:

cheers
Mark