Hi all,
Back in 2006 I first photographed the Hubble Deep Field South. You can see my original thread here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=12994
Back then I identified 13 non-stellar objects, which translates to a distance of about 4.5 billion light years and magnitude 22. At that time I was apparently the first person to attempt this, certainly I could find no evidence of others and neither could the Hubble Deep Field Space team who I communicated with in order to identify the objects in my FOV.
Since that time 8 years have gone by (like the blink of an eye...), years which have included many equipment upgrades and improvements in my personal knowledge of processing astrophotography.
This year (2014) I re-imaged the Hubble Deep Field South using more modern equipment and techniques. This time at least 35 objects are identifiable which translates to a limit of approximately magnitude 22.8 and distance of perhaps 4.8 billion light years.
To be honest I perhaps expected a bigger improvement. I suppose in the end, I could have done more exposure time and light pollution has only got worse.
It helps to put the distance in perspective of the known size of the universe and just how far an amateur is able to see towards that edge of the known universe, and hence back in time. Of course "seeing" is one thing but having detail to resolve any knowledge/understanding from those pixels, well that still requires the capabilities of hubble!
I've attached various processes of this iamge, with the Hubble Deep Field outlined. My website contains much more information and other images on the topic.
Sorry for banging on about it, for those who have heard me talk about it in the past, but it is something I enjoy
My website with more info:
http://rogergroom.com/projects/hubble-deep-field-south/
My astrobin site with plate solve and image technical info:
http://www.astrobin.com/116955/
PS. Notice all the other non-stellar blobs outside the HDF-S FOV, around it in my image. Makes me want to do the same depth of exposure over many more areas of the sky
