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Old 09-05-2013, 12:08 AM
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ChrisM
Sandy Ridge Observatory

ChrisM is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Gippsland, VIC
Posts: 768
Truly very deep space

A few weeks ago I found our closest neighbour - Proxima Centauri and posted an image on here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.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
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Last edited by ChrisM; 09-05-2013 at 12:17 AM. Reason: added link
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