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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Over the past four years, I have become interesting in tracking down very faint galaxy clusters at distances at or beyond 1 billion light years. I really enjoy looking at very faint fuzzies and knowing that the light took a billion or more years to reach my eye. Yes, I know that you can see farther by looking at quasars, but to me, quasars are just boring, star-like objects. Who wants to look at a single star? I don’t have enough imagination to make myself believe that that star-like object is really 9 billion light years away. However, faint fuzzies I can believe! Additionally, I can find no previous record of visual observation of most of these very faint galaxy clusters, and it’s pretty cool to observe two or three objects no one has ever visually seen before every time you go out to observe. It’s not that these objects are incredibly hard- though they ARE very faint- it’s that for most of these objects no one to my knowledge has ever really sought them out, and then made public record of his/her observations.
Now that I have received the 25” telescope and am using it regularly, I’m able to track down big elliptical galaxies often out to 3 billion light-years or more, while my 18” seemed more limited to around 2 billion. The big 25” is a real help in this quest.
During my observing trip to West Texas this year from 5/14 to 6/1, I tracked down about a dozen and a half distant Abell galaxy clusters. I’ll post these observations in three parts. I just finished typing up observations for the first group.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: Abell 1835 aka ACO 1835 aka AGC 1835
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.2532 (receding at 22.2% the speed of light), distance 3.1 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/14/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This galaxy cluster was on my list due to its density and because it gave me a pretty good shot at breaking the 3 BLY mark. This galaxy cluster is in a very easy to match star field, and is flanked by about half a dozen magnitude 13 and brighter stars. This galaxy cluster is also very dense, and the central elliptical is very large.
Observation:
(1) SMM J14010+0252: This is the brightest galaxy in the cluster, described by SIMBAD as a Seyfert-type AGN at a redshift of z = 0.25. At 540X (5mm Pentax), it was visible 80% of the time in adverted vision as a tiny, faint, fuzzy glow.
(2) Anonymous Galaxy: I believe this to be a foreground galaxy around 1-2 billion light-years distant, but there’s a possibility it is part of the cluster. I cannot find any redshift data for it to confirm or deny this. I was able to hold it about 50% of the time at 540X.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: Abell 1524 aka ACO 1524 aka AGC 1524
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.1369 (receding at 12.8% the speed of light), distance 1.8 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/15/09-5/16/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This galaxy cluster is fairly dense and medium-high population, and lies in a fairly easy to match star field.
(1) Anonymous Galaxy: This galaxy, along with (2), are anonymous on both SIMBAD and Megastar- Megastar plots this galaxy as a star, in fact (a common problem with very faint galaxies and Megastar). This galaxy, combined with (2), was easily held 100% of the time in adverted vision at 142X (19mm Panptic) while matching the field. Zooming in to 540X (5mm Pentax) allowed (1) to be split from (2), both galaxies held as separate entities in adverted vision 100% of the time.
(2) Anonymous Galaxy: This galaxy, along with (1), are anonymous on both SIMBAD and Megastar. This galaxy, combined with (1), was easily held 100% of the time in adverted vision at 142X (19mm Panptic) while matching the field. Zooming in to 540X (5mm Pentax) allowed (2) to be split from (1), both galaxies held as separate entities in adverted vision 100% of the time.
(3) Anonymous Galaxy and ???: While on the finder chart, the eastern most object looks very stellar, I believe it may be a compact galaxy. At 540X some kind of glow was held in this location about 75% of the time, while about 10% of the time, the glow resolved itself into two separate, tiny, round glows.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: ACO 1602
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.241 (receding at 21.3% the speed of light), distance 2.9 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/17/09-5/18/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This is a dense but med-low population and very faint and distant galaxy cluster.
(1) 2MASXI J1243246+271650: This is the central elliptical galaxy of the cluster. This galaxy was tougher than the POSS image (which was taken in red) would suggest. This is likely due to the fact that the elliptical, which should be yellowish to begin with, is getting red-shifted into a more orangish or redish color, where our eyes have little sensitivity. After all, this galaxy is receding at nearly a quarter of the speed of light! Anyway, I suspected seeing this galaxy immediately at 540X (5mm Pentax), however, I could not hold it and only glimpsed it a few times. After 10 minutes, I decided to definitely call this galaxy “observed”, as I could definitely tell something was there, especially when I shook the scope slightly, even if I could not hold it at all in adverted vision. No other galaxies in this cluster were bright enough to observe.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: ACO 1677
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.183 (receding at 16.6% the speed of light), distance 2.3 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/17/09-5/18/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This is a medium population, fairly dense, distant galaxy cluster.
(1) MCG+05-31-128, 2MASX J13055107+3054011, GB6 B1303+3110, and anonymous galaxies: At 540X (5mm Pentax), I was able to detect a large, grainy glow in this area about 20% of the time. I could tell there were multiple glows in this area, but I couldn’t exactly identify which glows shown on the finder chart I was seeing.
(2) Anonymous Galaxy/Radio Source FIRST J130548.4+305528: A radio source is cataloged nearly on top of this galaxy, so I would assume that the galaxy is emitting it somehow. The galaxy itself was only occasionally acquired in adverted vision, but I am pretty sure I saw it.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: ACO 2125
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.2465 (receding at 21.7% the speed of light), distance 3.0 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/17/09-5/18/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This is a distant, faint, and high population galaxy cluster. It is fairly well studied by professionals, and many of the galaxies that are faint enough to be anonymous in other galaxy clusters are cataloged.
(1) Galaxy clump- [DO99] ACO 2125 37, [DO99] ACO 2125 36, [DO99] ACO 2125 34: The clumping together of these three galaxies makes a visual object that is relatively easy to see! At 385X (7mm Nagler), I was able to hold this clump in adverted vision roughly 70% of the time! A nice little fuzzy glow, at least for 3.0 billion light years!
(2) [DO99] ACO 2125 29: This faint galaxy is located directly between two very faint stars, which I used for reference points. At 385X, I kept seeing an incredibly faint glow between these two stars, but I was unable to hold it for any length of time. Still, I feel pretty confident I was able to see it. I don’t remember why I didn’t try the 5mm Pentax on it. Maybe I was sick of trying to track at 540X with only 65 degrees of AFOV with all the sand and grit that had worked its way into my dob’s bearings.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint. Because the grid overlay overlaid one of the objects I was talking about in this report, I disabled it. This image is centered at 15h 40m 58s +66 18.5’.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Object: ACO 2218
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Redshift and distance: z = 0.171 (receding at 15.7% the speed of light), distance 2.2 billion light-years (assuming Ho = 71km/s/Mpc and relativistic redshift)
Date: 5/17/09-5/18/09
Instrument: 25” f/4.2 dobsonian
Location: 10 miles WSW of Fort Davis, TX, (30 35’N 104 04’W) altitude 6000’ (1850m), sky darkness: pristine
This is another very distant, dense, and high population cluster. It is another fairly well-studied galaxy cluster. It lies just to the southwest of MCG+11-20-019, a magnitude 13.8 spiral galaxy that actually showed its structure at 385X and 540X.
(1) Galaxy Clump- LEDA 140648 and about a dozen other cataloged galaxies: This is a VERY dense galaxy clump, and proved relatively easy to see. A large, grainy and fuzzy glow was seen in this area about 60% of the time at 385X (7mm Nagler). Boosting the magnification to 540X (5mm Pentax) only marginally improved the view, at the cost of the narrow 65 degree AFOV and higher power making it tougher to track with my sand-filled azimuth bearings.
(2) Two galaxies- 2MASX J16355720+6611077 and 2MASX J16355685+6611547: These two, fairly widely- separated galaxies were nonetheless hard to tell apart due to their isolation from nearby objects and their faintness. At 540X (5mm Pentax), I was able to occasionally pick up a glow in these galaxies’ location, but I was never able to hold that glow long enough to determine which galaxy I was seeing.
The image is from the POSS II Red plates, acquired via SIMBAD Astronomical database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/. Image was modified using MS PowerPoint and MS Paint.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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AlanK
professor emeritus
Reged: 01/26/07
Posts: 523
Loc: Auckland, New Zealand
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Great reports John. Its good to see what the limits are and I can see where the you get the buzz from boldly going where no visual observers have gone before (please excuse the cliche!)  For myself, I'll have to be content with 'few' rather than 'no' for visual observers.
There are a several hundred abell galaxy clusters plotted on the uranometria 2nd edition and quite a few of them have the brightest memebers topping out around mag 15-16 and as many of those are compact giant ellipticals of relatively high surface brightness I've had some success.
Regarding your previous post about the one in Corona Borealis, I had limited success with it last night as it only rises about 25 deg in the north and managed to see at least four faint spots with concentrated averted vision at 410x with the 18" and a NELM of no more than 5.0 in the area.
Anyway, good luck with your continuing observing AND good weather!
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Clear skies!
18 inch f4.5 Obsession #1637
12 inch f5.4 reflector
Just another frozen astronomer
Kumeu Observatory
Auckland NZ
7,436 deep sky objects incl 4,742 ngcs
Who dares - observes!
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Qkslvr
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/23/06
Posts: 1316
Loc: NE Ohio, US
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Good Job John!
Now with small scopes I do a bit of that with AP, and while the various abell groups aren't that pretty, there's something very cool about seeing light from that far away.
Something I've noticed is that when you really start showing all the galaxies in like cartes du ciel, they're everywhere!
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Mike
Onyx 80ED/N8/CG-5/40D
Edited by Qkslvr (06/19/09 04:06 PM)
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Quote:
Regarding your previous post about the one in Corona Borealis, I had limited success with it last night as it only rises about 25 deg in the north and managed to see at least four faint spots with concentrated averted vision at 410x with the 18" and a NELM of no more than 5.0 in the area.
Great job! It's very impressive for you to manage to see any at all under the conditions you describe! Did you use a finder chart or not? I can't imagine not using one under those conditions.
If you are intested in observing more of these objects, I've gone through and looked at images of almost the entire first Abell Galaxy cluster catalog. While this catalog of 2712 clusters is mostly in the northern hemisphere, it goes down to around -27 degrees if I remember correctly. Anyway, if you ARE interested in observing some of these, send me a PM and I can send you finder charts or numbers for some of the better, more southern, distant Abell clusters. With your 18", you should easily be able to break the 2 billion light-year mark on big ellipticals.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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tatarjj
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/20/04
Posts: 1316
Loc: Austin, TX
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Quote:
Something I've noticed is that when you really start showing all the galaxies in like cartes du ciel, they're everywhere!
Indeed! Once you get beyond local voids, galaxies do show up in every constellation, and every constellation has it's share of cool objects- except around the galactic equator, but of course, then you have Milky Way objects to look at instead.
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John T.
Austin, TX
25" f/4.2 Dob
18" Obsession #701
4" Stellar Vue Achromat
8X56 Binos
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AlanK
professor emeritus
Reged: 01/26/07
Posts: 523
Loc: Auckland, New Zealand
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Thanks, certainly am interested and will let you know. As for A2065, I downloaded a couple of DSS images as finder charts. Locating the field was very easy due to those few bright 11th mag stars in the area but seeing those little fuzzies required very careful concentration.
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Clear skies!
18 inch f4.5 Obsession #1637
12 inch f5.4 reflector
Just another frozen astronomer
Kumeu Observatory
Auckland NZ
7,436 deep sky objects incl 4,742 ngcs
Who dares - observes!
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Bill Barlow
sage
Reged: 12/03/07
Posts: 426
Loc: Overland Park KS
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Wow...those galaxy clusters are way out there! I'm going to try and find Abell 1656/part of the Coma Cluster this week before the moon gets too bright in the evening sky.
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A Meade 10" ACF OTA on a UA UniStar Deluxe Super 8 altaz mount on a Meade field tripod.
A SV 90TBV fluorite triplet refractor on a UA UniStar Light mount on a UA light surveyor tripod.
Garrett Optical 10x50, 12x60 and 30x100 binoculars.
Several TV Plossl and Nagler eyepieces.
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-=BB=-
only get better
Reged: 07/25/08
Posts: 34
Loc: Connecticut, US
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Wow - amazing observations. That is truly Deep Sky.
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~Bruce
"It is at is because it wants, once and for all, to be as it is." - Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860
I have: a 6" Dob, an 80ED Apo, a homemade 70mm refractor, a pair of 10x50 binos and some other stuff.
Edited by -=BB=- (06/21/09 05:53 AM)
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Ptarmigan
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 09/23/04
Posts: 2704
Loc: Arctic
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Cool. I am green with envy.  You're seeing light that dates back when Earth was very young and life was arising. 
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Ptarmigans=Cute and Cuddly
Meade Starfinder 8
Nikon 10x50
Rebel XT
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AlanK
professor emeritus
Reged: 01/26/07
Posts: 523
Loc: Auckland, New Zealand
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I have 'cheated' many times by observing some objects so far away that their photons started their journeys well before our solar system formed.
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Clear skies!
18 inch f4.5 Obsession #1637
12 inch f5.4 reflector
Just another frozen astronomer
Kumeu Observatory
Auckland NZ
7,436 deep sky objects incl 4,742 ngcs
Who dares - observes!
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jack45
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/07/03
Posts: 2577
Loc: Lacey WA
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That's about 5 or 6 billion years ago, that far!
Clear Skies!
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16"f/4.5 Discovery Split Tube/TV Paracorr
12.5"f/5 Discovery PDHQ/TV 2x Barlow/Filters
Orion f/4.9 XT12"Intelliscope
BV's/Bugress Model 24/Stellarvue Model BV3A
TV Smooth Side Plossls,7.4mm,10.5mm,13mm,17mm,21mm,26mm,all NJs
Nagler EPs 9mm T/1,13mm T/1,16mm T/2,20mm T/2,26mm T/5,24mm,28mm Meade SWA,40mm 5000s Plossl
Axiom EPs 23mm,31mm LX
Zhumell Planetary 9mm,12.5mm,14.5mm,18mm
UO EPs 5MM,6MM,7MM,12.5MM
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Starman1
Vendor - Scope City
Reged: 06/24/03
Posts: 12490
Loc: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Quote:
Something I've noticed is that when you really start showing all the galaxies in like cartes du ciel, they're everywhere!
Indeed! Once you get beyond local voids, galaxies do show up in every constellation, and every constellation has it's share of cool objects- except around the galactic equator, but of course, then you have Milky Way objects to look at instead.
John,
A few years ago I spent time looking specifically for galaxies in the Milky Way, e.g.Lyra or Cygnus. I always thought it was cool to know there was a huge amount of extinction on what, otherwise, would have been much brighter galaxies.
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Don Pensack
12.5" Truss Dob, 5" Maksutov, Fujinon Binos
Sustaining Lifetime IDA member
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davidpitre
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/10/05
Posts: 1995
Loc: Central Texas
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John,
Very nicely presented and documented report.
It is inspiring.
Thanks for sharing it.
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David
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