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From near to very far: Quasar 3C 273


John

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After a rather excited and lengthy session of lunar observing tonight, I wanted to chill out and observe something very different before packing my 12 inch dobsonian away for the night.

The seeing tonight was spectacular but the transparency was rather milky and the bright moon in the sky added to this to make the conditions far from suitable for hunting faint deep sky targets. But I fancied looking at something "deep" anyway.

The "bowl" of Virgo was well presented and I remembered that within that area lies the brightest quasar in the sky which is known as 3C 273. When I say brightest, it is still a magnitude 12.9 object but it is a point source so I hoped that would help it to cut through the milky background sky and be faintly visible.

Quasar 3C 273 certainly qualifies as a deep sky object as it lies at an immense distance of 2.443 Billion light years from us :shocked:

I used the finder charts in this 2019 Astronomy Now article by Ade Ashford to star hop to the right part of Virgo and the narrow field finder chart to nail which of the faint stars was the actually the quasar:

https://astronomynow.com/2019/03/07/seek-out-3c-273-the-brightest-optical-quasar-in-the-spring-sky/

Under a transparent sky my 12 inch dob can get down to magnitude 14.7 point sources but under tonights sky magnitude 13 was pretty challenging and it took some time to allow my eye to get accustomed to picking out the dimmest stars in the field of view. 

But eventually I narrowed a faint suspect star down and used the detailed finder chart towards the bottom of the linked article to be sure, matching the alignment of my suspect with the brighter star patterns nearby.

So there was the faint speck of light, at the edge of visibility tonight, comprised of photons that have traveled for billions of years to get to my eye. Just another faint star-like point but knowing what it was, made it a bit special :icon_biggrin:

Quite a contrast to the bright lunar features that I had been exploring earlier this evening.

I think there are 3 other quasars that could be within the reach of my scope, especially under darker skies. I'll have a go at those when I feel like "going deep" again :smiley:

 

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Thanks for sharing John.  You're like an excited kid in a sweet shop - and I love it!

2.443 billion light years away and mag 12.9 is mind blowing.  When observing deep sky objects I always think about how far and how long the photons have travelled before hitting my eye... it adds to the wonder and enhances my enjoyment.  It's why I am and will always be an analogue visual observer. 

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Great report John. 

Yes observing that quasar is definitely a must for everyone with a scope capable of observing it. I first looked at it with a 8 inch sct in pretty dark skies and I can still remember the feeling while I contemplated what I was actually looking at. As you mention there are a few other quasars out there, the one in the constellation lynx always springs to mind, that's getting on for 'birth of the universe' time scales as I recall. May have to look that up.. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I checked in Skysafari, and I see HIP 60936 indicated very close by to 3C 273.

Is this the one and same object with 2 names, but for some reason appearing as 2 distinct objects in SS?  Or is there a star almost lining up with the quasar?  Anyone know if this is a bug? Thanks!!

1044804400_Screenshot_20210406-180712_SkySafari6Pro.thumb.jpg.99fe553c8422efa22d7bf8099a54c459.jpg

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Nice one John, great thing to hit and I share your amazement at the distances involved. The origin of the light from it coincides with when tectonic plate movement is theorised to have began on earth!

I earmarked this quasar at the beginning of 2020 as a target I wanted to hit but obviously Covid came along that kiboshed that. However we are at a new moon tomorrow and restrictions are lowered so a 20 minute journey to a darker sight isn't unreasonable. 

I may have a go myself subject to clouds playing ball. 

Well done again.

Steve

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On 06/04/2021 at 23:35, niallk said:

Is this the one and same object with 2 names, but for some reason appearing as 2 distinct objects in SS?

The same object.
Stellarium brings them up as the same in its search option, but also shows slightly different locations.

So I did a search and found this Wiki which gives 3C273 the alternate names HIP 60936 and PGC 41121
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_273

 

@John nice report, nice eyeballing :) :thumbsup:

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