The Deep Field images from the Hubble telescope (and more recently from the James Webb Space Telescope) have long fascinated me, providing a glimpse into the dawn of our Universe - literally billions of years ago. I've often wondered what these would look like with an Earth-based amateur telescope. I was aware of Roger Groom's
image of this target from several years back, so was keen to see what I could achieve with my more modest equipment. So time for an experiment !
This is my attempt at the Hubble Deep Field South (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field_South), captured here with a humble 200mm newtonian (operating at f4.75) and QHY294C OSC camera and Optolong UV-IR filter on a (12 year old) NEQ6 mount.
30.42 hours (365 x 5 min exposures) across 2 July-6 Aug from Strathalbyn SA. Basic processing in Pixinsight (x2 drizzle, GraXpert, SPCC, BX, NX, HT).
Really only scratching the surface when compared with the Hubble image. Nonetheless, some HDF-S galaxies have been recorded, including ISOHDFS27 (mag 20.51) towards the bottom right (at one time thought to be the largest spiral galaxy in the universe).
Using Pixinsight's AnnotateImage script, it seems that this image has detected objects at least to Mag 21.1 (Quasar J22339-6022 - at Mag 21.10 - is visible in my image, where as J22337-6031 - at Mag 21.90 - is not). The most distant object to be captured as far as I can tell is quasar J2233-606 with a redshift of z=2.238, which if I understand correctly means the photons from that target were travelling through space for approx 11.5 BILLION years (!!!) before being captured with my backyard telescope and camera - which I think is pretty darn cool.
Not necessarily a "pretty" final image, and nowhere near as close to the Hubble image (or even Roger's image) as I would have (foolishly) hoped after 30+ hours, but (for a space nerd like me) a very interesting and fun experiment nonetheless.
https://www.astrobin.com/earkm8/
