Ton 618 quasar + deep field in Canes Venatici

[pietervdv]

Hello all,

Long time without a post, so time to change that! I spent 6 days imaging in Southern France late december 2021. Here is a first result.

I turned to the most massive black hole known in the observable universe, TON618. While the quasar itself is quite bright I made a long exposure of the area to reveal countless faint galaxies in the background.

This goliath clocks in at 66 billion (!) solar masses and has the energy output of 140 trillion suns.  It's located 10.8 billion light years from earth. Mind boggling trying to grasp numbers like these...

Made with my trusted homemade  10" f/3.8 Astrograph and an ASI-1600 MM Cool. Total exposure was 9 hours under pitch black skies in Provence South of France.

 

Hope you like it,

Regards,

Pieter

Edited January 29, 2022 by pietervdv

[Shibby]

Love it. As you say, the numbers are mind boggling. As are the incredible number of galaxies you've captured in this image!

[Mr Spock]

Nice capture. Too many galaxies to count though!

[Datalord]

Fantastic image. Very well done.

[pietervdv]

Thanks all for commenting! 👍

Pieter

[jjosefsen]

Aah so many faint fuzzies!

[Tom OD]

Great work. Love that galaxy in the top left corner.

Tom