Astronomy

owlice · July 25, 2025, 08:31:13 AM

Quote from: relm1 on July 24, 2025, 05:55:40 AMOk, here is my new picture. It was tough! My most epic picture ever and the most technically challenging. It grieves me to upload this as a very compressed image, but you do what you can do.

It might just look like a bunch of stars, but this contains an extremely distant cluster of galaxies! 500 million light years away and hundreds, maybe thousands of galaxies are here, some gravitationally bound. Each one with a 100 million stars (or is it 100 billion, I forget?) but when I first started seeing the results, I was awe struck because I didn't exactly know what this was. I like galaxy clusters but didn't know of this one.

This is a lovely image, and even a quick perusal of it shows lots of stuff going on way out there... some very intriguingly skewed galaxies, and in at least one place, maybe strong gravitational lensing.

krummholz · July 25, 2025, 10:01:33 AM

Quote from: relm1 on July 24, 2025, 05:55:40 AMOk, here is my new picture. It was tough! My most epic picture ever and the most technically challenging. It grieves me to upload this as a very compressed image, but you do what you can do.

It might just look like a bunch of stars, but this contains an extremely distant cluster of galaxies! 500 million light years away and hundreds, maybe thousands of galaxies are here, some gravitationally bound. Each one with a 100 million stars (or is it 100 billion, I forget?) but when I first started seeing the results, I was awe struck because I didn't exactly know what this was. I like galaxy clusters but didn't know of this one.

You didn't identify the galaxy cluster - from the filename I guessed that it might be the Abell 2151 cluster in Hercules, but none of the stock pictures of that cluster really resemble yours too closely. In any case, your photo is awesome!

relm1 · July 25, 2025, 11:27:42 AM

Thank you! Yes, this is Abell 2151 Hercules Galaxy Cluster. It took me some time to not call it Adele, that English singer who sings all those sad songs. Yes, look for that distinctive "L" shaped galaxy, two different galaxies just top of center in this crop. Here is mine to the left and one from NASA to the left but lined up.

relm1 · July 25, 2025, 11:30:11 AM

Quote from: owlice on July 25, 2025, 08:31:13 AMThis is a lovely image, and even a quick perusal of it shows lots of stuff going on way out there... some very intriguingly skewed galaxies, and in at least one place, maybe strong gravitational lensing.

Oh really?? Where is the lensing? I didn't notice that and have always wanted to capture that but thought too distant.

drogulus · July 29, 2025, 07:49:21 PM

Are you guys following 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object detected on July 1, then traced back in earlier images to June 25? In December it will reach its closest point to Earth (~2.4AU).

Oh, and Mr. Friend says hi.

LKB · July 29, 2025, 08:16:05 PM

Quote from: drogulus on July 29, 2025, 07:49:21 PMAre you guys following 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object detected on July 1, then traced back in earlier images to June 25? In December it will reach its closest point to Earth (~2.4AU).

Oh, and Mr. Friend says hi.

That video made me chuckle, though the appearances of the outer planets at the end seemed a bit of overkill.

drogulus · July 29, 2025, 10:43:59 PM

Quote from: LKB on July 29, 2025, 08:16:05 PMThat video made me chuckle, though the appearances of the outer planets at the end seemed a bit of overkill.

I agree. They should stay in their lane.

drogulus · July 31, 2025, 09:42:20 AM

3I/ATLAS is the largest interstellar object yet seen to travel through the solar system. Given it's velocity relative to the sun it won't be back.