Sunday, February 17, 2008

Eyes travelling 23 million light years

What would an astro-physicist do in a starlit night?
Sleeping?
No. He'd let his eyes travel. Last night it was a 23 million light years trip to M51.



Object details

NGC Number:

5194/5195

Object Type:
SA(s)bc
(HII: Sy2.5)


Constellation
Canes Venatici

RA/Dec:
13h 29m 52.7s
+47° 11' 42.62''

Distance:
23 kly

Apparent Dimension:

11.2' x 6.9'

Visual Brightness (V):
8.1 mag

Date:
16.02.2008
01:50 bis 03:15


Equipment:

Cass. 50cm f/10
SBIG STL-6303E


Detail screens:
L: 4 x 300sec
R: 4 x 300sec
G: 4 x 300sec
B: 4 x 300sec
(Binning: 1x1)


Temperature:

CCD-Chip: -25°C
Draußen: -3°C


Software:
CCD-Soft
ESO-MIDAS
IRAF
MaxIM DL

4 comments:

  1. Is your lens good enough to see the effects of the black hole at the centre of the spiral, the event horizon?, the dust spreads?

    Are you north of 43 degrees?

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  2. hope it was a profitable evening. The distances are just mind boggling to me.

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  3. Anon,
    as for the first part of your question(s):
    Using a 50 cm reflector telescope at the periphery of a town (with all its light) it’s just impossible.
    To my knowledge currently no visual telescope would be able to identify the phenomena you mention, i.e. the effects of a black hole.
    Up til now one would know about what happens “behind” the event horizon as much as one knows about Schrödinger’s cat unless one would open the box.
    What (sometimes) can be observed are , f.e. jets, “rocketing” out of the accretion disc.
    Due to that the jets after their “departure” would constantly travel (almost) with light-speed for millions of years, requires an enormous and constant energy source. And this would be taken as a fairly strong evidence for the existence of a black hole.

    As for the second part of your question:
    Yes, as to be seen from the object details. Sorry I wrote but the abbreviations.

    "Right Ascension“ (RA) 13h 29m 52.7s

    Declination (Dec) +47° 11' 42.62''

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jams,
    yes, trying (!) to imagine this is mind-boggling.
    As for me, I do always 'profit', when thinking of that our galaxy is not even a pinhead in this haystack called universe or rather multiverse. It helps (me) to put "things" in relation. :)

    ReplyDelete