the above paper identified a huge bright gravitational arc down near the SCP so I tried to image it. Local conditions limited the data to a selection of about 12 hours of very variable quality, but there was enough to show this extraordinary object. The arc lensing is so efficient that it is possible to detect photons that have been travelling for most of the life of the universe - they started their journey only ~3 billion years after the big bang and ~7 billion years before the solar system came into being. The source galaxy - if it still exists - is now way across the other side of the universe. It is really exciting and a great privilege to be able to observe photons this ancient and in a way that clearly shows the reality of spacetime warping.
The arc itself has 3 main sections (one quite small) and a fourth segment on the opposite side of the lensing mass - the fourth is not visible on this image. Most interesting is that the source galaxy is now quite blue, so it must have been rich in hard UV to be even visible at redshift >2. The discovery paper also shows blue in false colour near IR, again indicating a UV bias in the spectrum.
The image is cosmetically pretty ghastly - had to dig right down in the bones of the data and found lots of noise. Maybe next year there will be more data For now though, best fun for a long time.
thanks for looking. Cheers Ray
lum 188x2min
R 56x3min
G 26x3min
B 20x5min
10inch f4, asi1600
How cool is that nice work....and to think there are people who spend $70K just on an OTA to image and re-image and repro NGC 253, Cen A and Eta Carina ....man!...sheesh, THIS is astro imaging! Awesome
Wow what a fascinating piece of treasure you dug up Ray
Hi Dunk - this was fun
Quote:
Originally Posted by alocky
This has got to be the coolest thing I've seen! Gravitational lensing in an amateur image.
That's an astonishing result, even if it isn't pretty!
Thanks Andrew. It was really cool to see the thing develop in the processing and it sure is an astonishing thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
Well done, Ray That's incredibly cool. Doesn't really look that noisy, but maybe that's more of a reflection on me than the data
Thanks Rick. It took a bit of work getting rid of some of the blotchiness, but it is still there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
How cool is that nice work....and to think there are people who spend $70K just on an OTA to image and re-image and repro NGC 253, Cen A and Eta Carina ....man!...sheesh, THIS is astro imaging! Awesome
Mike
thanks Mike. yeah, this was fun stuff. Early on, it felt a bit like I was wasting good sky though - the seeing had to be good to get anything useful down so low and some pretty targets were missed.
That is pretty damn awesome Ray!
My mother keeps suggesting that I do what Hubble did and just point my scope at the most unassuming patch of boring sky there is and see what pops up. I figure, why do that when there are gravitational arcs to be had!
It's images like this and the random stuff that Mike and Steve image that really push out of the norm in astro imaging
That's brilliant - right up there with Rolf's go at the Einstein ring, and with a 10" scope too! I'm very impressed, that you found out about this, then had the patience to get enough good data. I think it's a lovely image too
This object is now on my target list, always wanted to image one of these. I'm actually surprised it's such a recent discovery as it's even visible on the DSS imagery on sky-map.org near IC4555. I guess it's a big sky, lots of places for stuff to hide!
Ray,
Well done!
When I read the heading I thought for a moment you'd come over to the spectroscopy side!
Just earlier this month Robin Leadbeater managed to obtain the first amateur spectrum of such an object. He was using a C11 and a modified (200 l/mm) ALPY spectrograph. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...messages/13865
For now though, best fun for a long time.
nice work....and to think there are people who spend $70K just on an OTA to image and re-image and repro NGC 253, Cen A and Eta Carina 
....man!...sheesh, THIS is astro imaging! Awesome 
