NGC 3079 (center) is interacting with NGC 3073 (right and down). They are a bit under 60 million light years. Nearby, very blue, CGCG 265-055 is about 64 million light years away. The interaction has warped NGC 3079's disk. To me it looks like a thin rubber disk the center of which is bouncing back and forth and currently is bouncing to the left. Massive star formation is going on in the outer blue region.

14" LX200R, L=4x10' binned 2x2, RGB=2x10' binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

A less compressed version is at:
http://www.spacebanter.com/attachmen...7&d=1210185659

There are 8 quasars within 15 minutes of the galaxy. The second image shows the most distant of the quasars at about 8 billion light years light travel time.

Rick

Attached Images

	NGC3079L4X10RGB2X10X3R1-7.jpg (133.9 KB, 31 views)
	NGC3079L4X10RGB2X10X3RQSO.jpg (73.4 KB, 79 views)

Nice one Rick...and that's billion with a "b". Very impressive how a guy in his backyard can image such a distant object!

Amateur astrophotography has progressed to a remarkable degree.

-V

First a correction. I see I got my eyes crossed looking up the redshift of the quasar. It's really only 8 billion light years away light travel time. I don't quite understand how I made that mistake.


You can say that again! When I built my first scope in 1954 the Hale 200" scope was only 5 years old and was taking amazing photos. Yet today many amateurs are taking better ones with "back yard" telescopes. Somehow, back then, man walking on the moon didn't seem all that unreasonable to me, but the idea I could take images that were in some ways as good or better than the Hale scope was taking at that time did seem beyond reason. Also the idea that I could have a computer far better than Univac at my disposal let alone have many of them in my house (even my microwave oven and cell phone have better computers than Univac) was also beyond belief.

As to the distance to a an object with a redshift of over 1 like this quasar, things get complicated. You have three distances. The common one is the light travel distance but the object was really much closer than that distance when the light was emitted. It's the expansion of the universe that causes the problem. Even though the object was much closer, say about 5.4 billion light years, the light had to travel 2.6 billion light years further to reach us because the space between us was expanding the whole time. Then you have its "current" distance. That would be about 11.5 billion light years if my math is right (and I'm lousy at this relativistic math). So we are seeing it as it existed some 8 billion years ago when it was 5.4 billion light years from us and if we could see it as it is today it would be over 11.5 billion light years away and the light would take several tens of billions of years to reach us as the expansion is a lot worse today than it was in the past. But since there are no quasars in our near by universe we may be save to assume that in the 8 billion years since that light left the quasar all have ceased to be quasars and are simply AGNs of one type or another.

Rick

Another great shot. I appreciated your discussion on the quasar distance measurement. It reminds me of answering questions from friends about "how far away..." and "how long would it take to get to..." Most can come to terms with light year distances and the 'looking back in time' concept but Universal expanasion let alone accelerating expansion really starts to do their heads in.

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Kind regards
Matt
LXD75 SN 8" f/4, DSI II pro

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, "hmm.... that's funny...."
Issac Asimov

Hi Rick, I concur with Matt, Simply Awesome! and thanks for the info. Clear Skies

Well, thanks Rick. For everything. Great compositions and explanations. That is how we are all the richer.

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clear skies