Messier 106 and the furthest deep sky object that I ever imaged

[emyliano2000]

Hello again,

As the galaxies are starting to get higher in the sky, I started to point my telescope a bit more towards them. The first that I can say I have enough data to produce a decent image is M106.

Because @wimvb pointed out that my M97-M108 photo had some objects that are very far away, I took the liberty to go online and try to find how far some of the objects in this photo are.

I was quite shocked to find that I captured a 19.5 magnitude quasar, 7C 121446.70+472852.00. I added it in white writting to the annotated photo and I also cropped a part of the large photo to show it better.

This is by far the furthest deep sky object that I ever imaged and also in the crop photo there are a few galaxies that are more than 2 billion light-years distant.

M106 - 21.5 Mly;

NGC4217 - 61.6 Mly;

NGC4220 - 44 Mly;

NGC4248 - 24.5 Mly;

NGC4232 - 336 Mly;

PGC2296601 - 338 Mly;

PGC213962 - 428 Mly;

PGC2297038 - 932 Mly;

PGC2300151 - 2,455 Mly;

PGC2299019 - 3,746 Mly;

PGC2299122 - 3,814 Mly;

7C 121446.70+472852.00 quasar - 12 Bly.

 

Eq6 hypertune gen2 by DarkFrame Ltd

AstroTech 106LE with upgraded Moonlite focuser

TSFlat 2" field flattener

ASI294MM Pro Cmos camera, cooled at - 15°C

8x1.25" ZWO USB filterwheel

Chroma 1.25" LRGB and 3nm 1.25" Ha filters

Qhyccd QHY5L-IIM guide camera

9x50mm finder-guider

Qhyccd Polemaster

 

Software used:

Eqmod, SGP - Sequence Generator Pro, PHD2, Stellarium with stellariumScope, SharpCap for polar alignment

 

Date: 22.01 to 04.02.2021

 

Location: Bushey, bortle 7

 

Ha: 14x300sec, Gain 200 Offset 10

Luminance: 34x300sec Bin 2x2, Gain 125 Offset 30

Red: 30x180sec; Green: 31x180sec; Blue: 31x180sec; Bin 2x2, Gain 125 Offset 30

 

Total integration time 8 hours and 36 minutes

 

Emil

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by emyliano2000

[geordie85]

Very nice, this is one of my favourite targets to image, yet I've never managed an image that I'm satisfied with.

I hope that having a dual rig now will help eliminate that once I get some clear skies.

[emyliano2000]

2 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

Very nice, this is one of my favourite targets to image, yet I've never managed an image that I'm satisfied with.

I hope that having a dual rig now will help eliminate that once I get some clear skies.

Thanks. I could've probably done with a bit more data on it, being under bortle 7 skies, to be honest but I was so excited to see how it looks so far that I decided to stack and edit 😁

Emil

[wimvb]

Nice!

40 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

I could've probably done with a bit more data on it, being under bortle 7 skies, to be honest but I was so excited to see how it looks so far that I decided to stack and edit 😁

Try to get 20 hours or more. Once the noise gets less, all kind of redshifted galaxies pop up, many of which aren't catalogued. The great dipper is a real treasure trove for distant galaxies, and not having a long fl actually helps, because it allows wider vistas.

Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data? Be aware that redshift for quasars for some reason isn't the same as for galaxies; it overestimates their distance.

Edited February 7, 2021 by wimvb

[geordie85]

50 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

Thanks. I could've probably done with a bit more data on it, being under bortle 7 skies, to be honest but I was so excited to see how it looks so far that I decided to stack and edit 😁

Emil

I get that. I almost always have a stack and process of a night's data to see how things have turned out. 

But I've ended up with loads of unfinished images and multiple stacks of data on the same object

[emyliano2000]

33 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Nice!

Try to get 20 hours or more. Once the noise gets less, all kind of redshifted galaxies pop up, many of which aren't catalogued. The great dipper is a real treasure trove for distant galaxies, and not having a long fl actually helps, because it allows wider vistas.

Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data? Be aware that redshift for quasars for some reason isn't the same as for galaxies; it overestimates their distance.

Thanks, I'll try to add more to it and see what else pops out

I didn't actually calculated it myself, I found it on this website https://astrovirusblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/m106-quasars-and-cosmological-distances/?fbclid=IwAR2_zqXun40oGqzGSfIq6WAYHrLJO2UdBd5VefqWLa_8Sj88K37JUDFBQOMhash=59fa4c9a54d59330b10735ae0c945b05#comment-699hash=59fa4c9a54d59330b10735ae0c945b05#comment-699

It was showing 15bly under the photo, I messaged the owner and it looks like he rectified it to 12 bly. It's saying that it has a 1.13 redshift.

Where do you get your data from, I would love to know.

Emil

[emyliano2000]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data?

I found this and indeed with a 1.13 redshift it workes out at 12Gly

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html

[wimvb]

Thanks for the link.

I get my data from simbad. It shows the redshift for galaxies. I then put that in my spreadsheet and get the distance in megaparsec and mega lightyears.

astrophysics calculator.xlsx

[Luke Newbould]

Really nice shot, and so colourful too! - I must admit to always enjoying a good scan around of tiny background objects even when the frame is dominated by a stand-out target like this

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Brilliant image, especially from Bortle 7 skies. Great catching such a distant object.

[peter shah]

lovely colour, so much going on in this shot...

[emyliano2000]

Thank you guys. I think I'll keep adding to it until I get close to around 20 hours. I try to shoot the luminance when the target is at its highest and the streetlights are turned off but I think a good light pollution filter would help a bit more. Maybe some 300sec on the RGB too. 

Emil

[emyliano2000]

 

I managed toadd a little bit more data to it.  I think it's quite an improvement over the original. Managed to get some detail and colour in some of the little fuzzies too. 😁

Here's the astrobin link

https://www.astrobin.com/lbnn92/

Edited March 5, 2021 by emyliano2000