Q0022+224 @ 8 BLY!

[nytecam]

This brightish quasar [Megastar=m16.6] is tucked away in the most southerly field of Andromeda as a background object of AGC 31 - its gxs barely recorded in the brief exposure from last night - a vertical gxy chain marked with Sloan DSS field image right. 

I find the extreme range of some quasars facinating even though they look like faint stars

[Jannis]

Wow, now that's faint!

[narrowbandpaul]

8Glyr. Cool!

[ollypenrice]

Very, very interesting!

Olly

[nytecam]

Thanks Jannis, NBPaul and Olly for your interest.

[opticalpath]

They are fascinating objects. I particularly like the ones that display gravitational lensing. I imaged this one - J1004+4112 the quadruple lensing quasar - way back in 2004 using a LX200 and modified webcam!
In this (very heavily stretched) picture G is the foreground galaxy causing the lensing and A,B,C and D are four gravitationally lensed images of the much more distant quasar. The 4 components are very faint, ranging from magnitude 18.7 to 20.5.

Adrian

 

[Uranium235]

Great thing about quasars is that theyre not as difficult as you might think. I was able to image the twin quasar with just an 80mm refractor, that one is about 8.4bly. Another easy one is 3C 273.

Would be nice to have a crack at Einsteins cross one day, but I think that would require quite a lot of FL.

[Sam]

Very very nice, fascinating image and a very interesting subject.

[nytecam]

Very nice grav quasar Adrian - give APM 08279+5255 in Lynx a go ['above' Castor]  @ 12BLYs but mag 15.6

[andyo]

 an interesting and good post  

[nytecam]

Thanks Andy   

I've used NED and Wikisky to ID some of the gxs within AGC 31 in And - those marked in yellow are  2BLY range [1.973 GLY] so my guess @ >1BLY from gx mag and size was about right.  Some background gxs in cyan @ 3BLY [2.994 GLY] range are not recorded in my brief exposure. 

So the quasar is x4 further away than AGC 31 gxs - amazing distances for ancient light to travel towards earth starting long before the solar system existed

[opticalpath]

Very nice grav quasar Adrian - give APM 08279+5255 in Lynx a go ['above' Castor]  @ 12BLYs but mag 15.6

Mag. 15.6 should be no problem, but the 0.5 arcsec separation of the components is another matter!

Adrian

[nytecam]

Mag. 15.6 should be no problem, but the 0.5 arcsec separation of the components is another matter!Adrian

Yeh - I'm happy to just record quasars and not resolve 'em :-)

[NickK]

Ahh this is my sort of imaging

Makes me wonder if you could see the rotation with a spectrograph attached.. although at that mag it may be difficult to get the spectra..

[nytecam]

Ahh this is my sort of imaging

Makes me wonder if you could see the rotation with a spectrograph attached.. although at that mag it may be difficult to get the spectra..

Nick - I thought quasars were visible at huge distances because the quasar 'jets' point our way so you're looking down on the quasar pole which will have little or no radial velocity on our direction but maybe I'm wrong :-)

[opticalpath]

Ahh this is my sort of imaging

 

Makes me wonder if you could see the rotation with a spectrograph attached.. although at that mag it may be difficult to get the spectra..

I think fast-rotating stars can be studied this way, by measuring the slight broadening of spectral lines due to the shifts caused by a receding limb and an approaching limb of the spinning star. But I doubt this can be done for very distant stars. Quasars do show line broadening but they're complex objects so I think it's much harder to interpret.

Adrian

[nytecam]

I think fast-rotating stars can be studied this way, by measuring the slight broadening of spectral lines due to the shifts caused by a receding limb and an approaching limb of the spinning star. But I doubt this can be done for very distant stars. Quasars do show line broadening but they're complex objects so I think it's much harder to interpret.Adrian

Indeed - spectral line broadening of fast spinning stars - Altair is a good example resolved via my SBIG SG spectrograph.

The cosmological 'redshift' of quasars is also measure able by amateurs - the red shift is so huge that very modest spectral resolution of the Rainbow Optics or Staranalyser grating makes this possible - I'd done two with good value including 3C273 and borderline for the Lynx quasar @ 12 BLY:-)