Bright lensed quasar discovered in Andromeda

[mdstuart]

Harry

Thanks for your observation.. I can get to 15.2/3 overhead in a good sky so I will have another go..

Mark

[niallk]

Many thanks for posting this @harrym! Fascinating - will have to try for it

[robin_astro]

Thanks for the "heads up" on this. I pointed my low resolution spectrograph at it last night. The spectrum confirms the z=2.4 redshift

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/300597-11-billion-years-ago/

Robin 

[andrew63]

On 10/08/2017 at 01:28, harrym said:

The most amazing thing about this quasar is its redshift of 2.377, giving a distance of around 11 billion light years (at the time the light was emitted; it's now more like 19 billion). This means that if you manage to observe it, it may well be the most distant object you will ever see.

Just as amazing to me is that you can pop up the garden with a telescope and view it !

andrew

[Littleguy80]

Amazing what can be seen. Forgive my ignorance, will the magnitude remain at that level or is there potential for it to get brighter? 

[harrym]

17 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

Amazing what can be seen. Forgive my ignorance, will the magnitude remain at that level or is there potential for it to get brighter? 

Quasars are often variable so it could change brightness, yes. But as it's only recently been discovered we don't know anything about its light curve.

It seems to have been recorded as a magnitude 14.9 'star' in some catalog (can't remember which one), whereas combining the magnitudes from the initial paper suggested 14.5, and visually it seemed more like 15.2. As these measurements were all at different times I guess this could be a sign of its variability?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting. Spotting it would positively shatter my previous distance record (OJ-287: a mere 3.5 billion ly away). Maybe we should give this a go with the 16" RC of our university at the next outreach event

[harrym]

Just saw this quasar again. The conditions weren't nearly as good as last time, but I think it's a bit brighter now than it was in August. Back then it was fainter than the star I marked "14.9?" on my chart which I posted earlier in the thread, and I estimated it was around magnitude 15.2, but this time it was the same brightness as the 14.9? star or maybe even a little brighter - perhaps 14.8. Now's the time to give it a go before it gets fainter again!

[Dave In Vermont]

I wonder if this has been noted to Alex Wolf - of the Stellarium Developer's group. Who knows if it's already included? But no harm in sending him a 'heads' up' on this. Stellarium has a great many quasars noted as is. But I don't know if a 'quadruple-lensed' has been noted in it. Yet.

Fascinated -

Dave

[harrym]

Returning to this thread 5 years on to report that I finally managed to see Andromeda's Parachute as non-stellar with the Northumberland refractor on Thursday night. At 218x it was just visible with averted vision as a faint "star" of magnitude ~15.2. Seeing was good enough that I was able to move up to 762x (an 8mm Delos) - at this magnification the quasar occasionally appeared as a very faint slightly elongated smudge. I was unable to resolve it into separate components, though it's possible that sometimes I only saw one at a time.

Edited October 22, 2022 by harrym

[davhei]

I observed this object as starlike at the end of August with a 10-inch dob. Found it very difficult and at the limit of my ability.

Visible as an occasionally flickering point of light with averted vision, but I did manage to repeat the observation a handful of times. I would say it was visible for less than 10% of the time.

I asked an experienced deep sky observer to have a look to confirm and looking through my 10 inch he confirmed he saw it as well. That made me more confident I actually saw it and that it wasn’t just a trick of the mind. This was really one of the most demanding observations I have made and I was excited to have managed it.

Would like to revisit at some point with a bit more aperture.