Hi everybody, last night I imaged my first gravitational lens
This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, so finally here is the gravitationally lensed double quasar HE1104-1805:
Image details:
Taken on 20/02/2010 with 10" Newton F/5, Losmandy G11
ToUCam Pro SC1
25 x 45.4s exposures
Prime focus, no filters.
The gravitationally lensed double quasar HE 1104−1805 was discovered by Wisotzki et al. in 1993. The two images with magnitudes of 16.70 and 18.64 are separated by 3.195". Their redshift z=2.303 indicates a distance of 11.8 Gly (given a Hubble constant H0 = 74.2 (km/s)/Mpc).
The lensing galaxy itself has been imaged by Hubble Space Telescope and lies closest to the A component, with an angular separation of 1.15".
A gravitational lens is formed when the light from a very distant bright source, such as a quasar, is bent around a massive object, such as galaxy or a cluster of galaxies, between the source object and the observer. The process is known as gravitational lensing, and is one of the predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed imaging it.
Comments, critique etc are most welcome.
I remember reading a while ago that in the early days of General Relativity, People assumed that we could never prove or disprove the idea of gravitational lensing, then the HST came along, and imaged a gravitationally lensed galaxy cluster... People then said "you could not hope to use gravitational lenses from earth based telescopes" I believe Keck I was the first to prove otherwise, and now here you are, an amateur astronomer with a 10" Newtonian and a webcam imaging gravitationally lensed objects from your backyard..
Congrats, nice work, and interesting image I enjoy having projects such as you have here, it's nice to achieve something specific and interesting.
I once imaged a galaxy which appeared to be wrapped around a star in a 110 degree arc. Couldn't find any data on it to know if it was lensed or just co-incidental. There's so many things like that as an amateur astornomer where you just go "well, it looks like it, but no idea how to know for sure" and so it just ends there.
How did you go about finding your target? Do you know of a catalogue of lensed objects, or your just picked up on this one?
I remember reading a while ago that in the early days of General Relativity, People assumed that we could never prove or disprove the idea of gravitational lensing, then the HST came along, and imaged a gravitationally lensed galaxy cluster... People then said "you could not hope to use gravitational lenses from earth based telescopes" I believe Keck I was the first to prove otherwise, and now here you are, an amateur astronomer with a 10" Newtonian and a webcam imaging gravitationally lensed objects from your backyard..
Awesome.
Thank you Alex. It is great to be able to image this stuff. Admittedly we amateurs usually have the advantage that the research and cataloguing is already done and we 'only' have to point our scopes at the good stuff. Imagine seeing this speck of light for the first time and having to figure out what it is - modern science is amazing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mill
Whoohoo!!!! In 10 years we will be making pics with a mobile phone and pull loads of stuff out of space via gravitational lensing.
Top picture Rolf.
Thanks Martin. Yeah who knows how we might exploit general relativity in the future? I stumbled across an interesting article and discussion here: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=10123
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerg
Congrats, nice work, and interesting image I enjoy having projects such as you have here, it's nice to achieve something specific and interesting.
I once imaged a galaxy which appeared to be wrapped around a star in a 110 degree arc. Couldn't find any data on it to know if it was lensed or just co-incidental. There's so many things like that as an amateur astornomer where you just go "well, it looks like it, but no idea how to know for sure" and so it just ends there.
How did you go about finding your target? Do you know of a catalogue of lensed objects, or your just picked up on this one?
Thanks,
Roger.
Thank you Roger. Yes with some of these more obscure objects it can certainly be a challenge to find proper information about them. I don't know of a catalogue of gravitational lenses as such, I just looked around and found this one with a Google search. There are a number of others, but most have smaller angular separation so they would be a challenge to image.
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron
Very Impressive Rolf
Top Stuff
Thank you very much Ron.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeanoNZL
Nice one Rolf.
Putting our recent fine weather to good use.
Thank Adrian, yes it finally cleared up again didn't it
Quote:
Originally Posted by bojan
This look like a REAL work
Not something that everybody else does.. congratulations, for the idea and for carrying it out !
Thank you very much Bojan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry B
Very good. The best I've done is a qso with a z=2.1
Very cool.
Thanks Terry, my record is Q1451-15 with a redshift of z=4.762: http://www.titirangiobservatory.com/.../q1451-15.html
I believe in the last few years some quasars with z=6+ have been discovered, now that would be far away... :O
Quote:
Originally Posted by allan gould
Impressive shot and very well done - especialy with a webcam
Thank you very much Allan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ric
That's pretty special Rolf, fantastic work.
Cheers
Thank you very much Ric.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zipdrive
wow...coooool!
Thank you
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garyh
yep, that is something special for us amateurs to capture for sure
Thank you Gary, yes it is pretty amazing that we can see this stuff at all.
I also enjoyed your web site, you have collected images of a few interesing objects over the years.
Mike
Thanks Mike, your images are certainly also impressive. I always enjoy your work.
BTW you have reached some serious magnitudes as I recall, your Centaurus A 'deep field' for example. Have you tried imaging Abell galaxy clusters? I imagine you should be able to get a great shot of one of those!
