How far can you see?

[glenc (Glen)]

The most distant object that you can see with an 8" telescope is 3C 273.
It is about 2 billion light years away.
http://www.seds.org/~spider/Spider/Misc/3c273.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_273

The map below is from SkyMapPro. North is at the bottom of the page and 3C 273 is the dot next to 12h30m in the center of the map. It transits at about 2am. RA 12h29m06.7s dec +02d03m09s QSO

[mickoking]

I have seen 3C 273 several times. It just blows me away how distant and powerful this object is. If the distance to 3C 273 was scaled down to 1000km the distance from us to Alpha Centauri would be 2mm

[astroron (Ron)]

3C 273 is on my observing list every time Virgo comes around.

[glenc (Glen)]

Hipparcos puts the distance at 909 +/- 571 light years according to SkyMapPro. Is this the same object?
Catalog number: HIP 60936
V magnitude: 12.88
RA: 12h 29m 06.6940s
Dec: +2° 3' 08.634"
Trigonometric parallax: 0.00359 arcsec
Standard error of the parallax: 0.00607 arcsec