The Star that changed our perspective on the Universe

[Allinthehead]

Hi all, 

It's often said that great discoveries are made by building on work done by others and Edwin Hubble's discovery in 1923 that M31 was not a Nebula, but in fact a galaxy of it's own is no exception.

His remarkable and perspective shifting discovery was made possible by Henrietta Swan Leavitt's work, providing astronomers with the first standard candle. Her discovery allowed one to know the true luminosity of a Cepheid by simply observing its pulsation period. This in turn allowed Hubble to determine the distance to the star, by comparing its known luminosity to its observed brightness and thus changing our understanding of the Universe.  The star in question is known as V1.

Image consists of 411 frames of 60 and 120 second exposures

Asi 2600mc through a Takahashi Epsilon 160ed mounted on an AzEq6

Stacked in APP, Processed in APP, PI and PS

Regards,

Richard.

Half Resolution

Full Resolution

Edited December 11, 2021 by Allinthehead

[andrew s]

Nice story, technology (100") , theory and experimental science going hand in hand. Regards Andrew 

[Allinthehead]

21 hours ago, andrew s said:

Nice story, technology (100") , theory and experimental science going hand in hand. Regards Andrew 

Thanks Andrew, I was just informed that today is actually the anniversary of the death of Henrietta Swan Leavitt. 

[turbotim]

Incredible! Wow!

[Allinthehead]

On 12/12/2021 at 14:59, turbotim said:

Incredible! Wow!

Many thanks, glad you like it.