For a long time I’ve been thinking about trying to capture a quasar. I finally found out how to get a couple of them, by imaging a galaxy in Ursa Major, NGC 4151. Quasars are extremely bright young galaxies, at the edges of the universe, so they are far out there. I don’t know exactly how far these two are, but over a billion light years for sure. Here’s a good link to read more about quasars.
The largest galaxy in this image is NGC 4151. I was able to find the quasars using images taken by other astronomers and the Simbad database. It is hard to comprehend the immensity of all this. In fact, I think it is impossible. I may have reached the limit of my C8 as far as distant objects go, but I have another project in mind that may work out someday. While waiting for NGC 4151 to rise, I took about 2 hours of the Owl Nebula, M97. A planetary nebula by the Big Dipper, it is one of the biggest and brightest. NGC 3180, the Little Pinwheel Galaxy, also in Ursa Major. I’ve done this one before so I just added the data to what I already had. The bright yellow star above the galaxy is magnitude 6.5, so it would not be visible to the unaided eye. The Kit Fox again. I think the fleas in the den must be getting pretty bad. They spend a lot of time scratching.
One reply on “Quasars, Galaxies and M97”
In reading that article I found out I didn’t know much of anything about quasars. It was very interesting. As you said the vastness of the universe is incomprehensible!
One reply on “Quasars, Galaxies and M97”
In reading that article I found out I didn’t know much of anything about quasars. It was very interesting. As you said the vastness of the universe is incomprehensible!