quasars = really ancient lights

[nytecam]

Tried to image a extemely remote quasar in Lynx at 12BLY during the week but results only fair. Need another go when weather permits but here's some pics I did awhile back with a 'thermometer' against each showing how far away they are eg 'lookback time' with our earth only 1/3 the age of the universe itself.

So the light from these quasars began their journey long before earth was born - now there's a thought for Sunday morning

[Hedge Witch]

Wow, Nytcam, I never knew you could do that - very impressive!

[nytecam]

Thanks HW More info via Google search but my take may help.

Quasars are thought to be galaxies like our own Milky Way but with gigantic blackholes at their core which suck in surrounding stars and gas down to a single point or 'singularity' but eject a brilliant beam of light - the 'final scream before oblivion'!

So brilliant are the beams-of-light, directed at earth by chance alignment, that they can be seen almost back to the BIG BANG creation of the universe some 13.6 billion years ago from backyard telescopes! 100,000 quasars have now been discovered and are distributed across the whole sky.

The remote quasars in the linked pic were imaged in the autumn of 1998 via a 30cm Meade XL200 with Starlight Xpress MX9 CCD camera. Included are two gravitationally lensed, by intervening 'invisible' galaxies, which either split the quasar into two i.e. Q0957+561 or like APM08279+5255, receding at 92% velocity of light and some 12 billion light-years away, brightened by a factor x20 to shine like 5 quadrillion suns - truly Lighthouses at the Edge of the Universe.

All galaxies are moving apart due to the expansion of the universe since the Big Bang and this can be 'seen' in the Doppler Shift of quasar's spectrum in a spectroscope. The 'z' value is a measure of recession of the quasar [from earth] as deduced from a shift of the spectral lines towards the red end of the spectrum - in the case of the Lynx quasar from the invisible far ultra-violet at 1000A into far red at ~7000A. Now that's really red-shifted and a few amateurs have successfully attempted these measurements !

[connor]

Thought id post this for the people that dont no what a quasar is

A Quasar is an enormously bright object at the edge of our universe with the appearance of a star when viewed through a telescope. It emits massive amounts of energy, more energy than 100 normal galaxies combined.

[nytecam]

Originally Posted by Hedge Witch

Wow, Nytcam, I never knew you could do that - very impressive!

Here's a short video clip via my scope on quasars and their redshifted spectra - hope it's of interest

[Ruth Daniel]

Originally Posted by nytecam

Here's a short video clip via my scope on quasars and their redshifted spectra - hope it's of interest

Gosh it's mind blowing!!
I can't begin to imagine the time span!!!
My son is studying Astrophysics at uni.......so I'll be able to engage him in a quasar conversation now! lol!