3C 273, Deep but no jet, yet.

[Paul M]

I've been itching to get my new RC10 pointing at 3C 273, I have a hankering to capture at least a hint of the jet.

The night of 13/14 Feb was very clear and steady here so I set up and played with other objects until Virgo climbed into my sky. By the time I had the Quasar set up it was already nearly 1am so I left it to do it's thing.

100 x 120 sec, ASI071 MC Pro, RC10 c/w 0.8 reducer/flattener. I had the gain set to 0, in the hope of keeping the stars more manageable but, maybe I should have gone for gain 240 - minimum read noise? Guiding wasn't best, but I wasn't in the mood to mess with re calibrating PHD2. 

Stacked, stretched, converted to mono and annotated with ASTAP. No Flat or Dark calibration. Not got round to it with this new gear yet, but I'd have gone back to it if the image had been worth it. There a galaxies down to mag 19 here so it's deep but my southern sky from home is appalling now. I think they've put new sodium street lighting up on a big roundabout near me. It looks like a bonfire on my lowest horizon

Looking at the quasar, I thought I'd just captured a few pixels of the jet just out of the bottom of it's stellar presence. I think though that it's just the faint vestiges of a diffraction spike. Unfortunately the orientation of the OTA put the spikes almost exactly on the same axis as the jet!! Stoopid way to make a quasar I'd say.

The short trail below the quasar is asteroid (580) Selene. The bright star immediately below the r/h end of that trail happens to obscure another quasar in the upper edge of its glare. Much fainter and further than 3C 273, so not worth mentioning. Oh....

There is another faint trail in the upper left quadrant, 1992 BZ is the culprit. 

There are way more fuzz balls than Hyperleda annotated. Using the Aladin annotation tool in ASTAP opens a whole new world of annotations and tick marks!!

Anyway, if you like grainy deep field images that miss their target, you'll love this:

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Paul M

[Xilman]

Looks good to me, and congratulations on picking up two asteroids. Getting one serendipitously is fairly uncommon.

Remember that the jet is not very long and much fainter than the quasar's core. You may well have captured it but have not yet enlarged the image enough and/or performed some rather vigorous contrast enhancement. It's certainly possible to image with a 25cm scope but not entirely trivial.

If you are into relativistic jets, you may wish to have a go at M87 later this year. It is somewhat easier than 3C273 in my experience.

Please keep trying. Not many people seek out things like this because they don't yield pretty pictures, but I like the challenge more than the aesthetics.

 

[Neil_104]

On 15/02/2023 at 03:23, Paul M said:

Stoopid way to make a quasar I'd say

😂

Great idea to try for the jet, and hats off to your effort. Similar to Xilman's thoughts, I love doing this sort of thing when imaging. Give me something like this rather than M42 -again- any day. I was totally enthralled as I read your post 👍

How about trying for the Cosmic Horseshoe? I'm going to try that this season, not that I think I'll even get close it showing it with my current equipment, but just because it feels like a bit of an adventure.

[Paul M]

4 minutes ago, Neil_104 said:

How about trying for the Cosmic Horseshoe?

You'll have to remind/educate me. I don't recall that particular adventure!

[Xilman]

20 minutes ago, Paul M said:

You'll have to remind/educate me. I don't recall that particular adventure!

Seconded. Time to have a chat with DuckDuckGo ...

 

Ah, here we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Horseshoe

With a quoted B magnitude of 20.3 I expect it to be not entirely trivial to image.  Might give it a try now that I know of its existence but don't expect to have much success and certainly not until the dust has cleared out of the sky around here. When Orion's belt is a difficult naked eye object I don't even bother to open up the observatory.

Added in edit: a rummage around in Simbad and Aladin suggests that it may not be completely out of the question. A few hours unfiltered exposure should be enough. I have reached fainter than mag 22.0 on stellar objects before now. It emphatically will not be a pretty picture!

Thanks for making the suggestion.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Xilman

[Paul M]

5 minutes ago, Xilman said:

Seconded. Time to have a chat with DuckDuckGo ...

 

Ah, here we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Horseshoe

Oh WOW!

One thing I like more than cosmic jets is gravitational lensing.

That's my next outing accounted for, without a doubt. The magnitude is likely below my home sky limit but, you never know.

[Neil_104]

That's the thing. Even if I could just get a pixel or two that I consider to be the ring, that would be going in my photo album for the year 🙂

[tomato]

11 hours ago, Xilman said:

Seconded. Time to have a chat with DuckDuckGo ...

 

Ah, here we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Horseshoe

With a quoted B magnitude of 20.3 I expect it to be not entirely trivial to image.  Might give it a try now that I know of its existence but don't expect to have much success and certainly not until the dust has cleared out of the sky around here. When Orion's belt is a difficult naked eye object I don't even bother to open up the observatory.

Added in edit: a rummage around in Simbad and Aladin suggests that it may not be completely out of the question. A few hours unfiltered exposure should be enough. I have reached fainter than mag 22.0 on stellar objects before now. It emphatically will not be a pretty picture!

Thanks for making the suggestion.

Thanks for this, it is definitely on my list for this Spring season.

@Paul M, great post, capturing the jet is not easy but it’s possible, to get those few illuminated pixels is quite something.

[Xilman]

Here is an amateur image of 3C273 and its jet https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20220207_155425_db3009e6821ce52f which shows the size and brightness differential rather nicely. Note 15 minutes exposure on a 0.5m telescope. You (Paul M) will need at least an hour.

My image (10 minutes on a 0.4m) of the jet of M87 is here https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20220401_141632_b78b6439f53880d9

[Paul M]

7 hours ago, Xilman said:

Here is an amateur image of 3C273 and its jet https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20220207_155425_db3009e6821ce52f which shows the size and brightness differential rather nicely. Note 15 minutes exposure on a 0.5m telescope. You (Paul M) will need at least an hour.

My image (10 minutes on a 0.4m) of the jet of M87 is here https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20220401_141632_b78b6439f53880d9

That's a great image of 3C 273's jet. I'd be very pleased to get something much less defined than that. Not sure my S horizon will ever be dark enough. Maybe have a go from a darker site.

I've had some success with M87's jet previously but I can't find my image of it at the moment.

[Xilman]

On 18/02/2023 at 22:17, Xilman said:

 Might give it a try now that I know of its existence but don't expect to have much success ...

Here is a teaser.  Rather more later, I hope, when I have finished collecting data and processed the results properly.

 

                        

 

On the left is my crude attempt.  On the right is the DSS2 image as displayed by Aladin Lite. Note my camera is rotated by about 12 degrees.

[Paul M]

I think you got it there Paul, nicely done!

Definitely clear sky between the horseshoe and central galaxy.