Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3718
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3718, Different Perspective, Kent Wood
NGC 3718, Different Perspective
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 3718, Different Perspective

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3718, Different Perspective, Kent Wood
NGC 3718, Different Perspective
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 3718, Different Perspective

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This is a repost of NGC 3718 after rotating, cropping image and sharpening core.

This spiral galaxy, NGC 3718, appears to have been twisted and warped during a cosmic dance with a galactic neighbor. This can occur when galaxies wander too close to each other and gravity prevails. This type of interaction often sparks new star formation, which can be noted in the blue clumps towards the top of the galaxy. NGC 3718 lies 53 million light years away from us. The cluster of 5 galaxies seen above it, Hickson 56, lies almost 10 times further, with its light having traveled 425 million years before reaching my telescope. Many of the small, faint, fuzzy galaxies seen in the background lie much further away. However, the object that wins the prize for distance in this image is a quasar. (See small, right angle lines to the lower right side of galaxy) Quasars are the energetic nuclei of the earliest galaxies. A quasar emits tremendous light as matter becomes superheated while orbiting the massive black hole that lies at its core. The redshift of quasar J1113205 1+530727, which helps us determine its distance, is 1.84. This translates to a Light Travel Time of 10.129 billion years. So the message and image these photons have been carrying with them through the Universe, at the speed of light, has taken over 10,000,000,000 years to be delivered!

I am amazed again at the beauty of the cosmos. Nicholas Copernicus, in his seminal work, “Of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, expresses well why many of us continue to be drawn to the study and photography of the Heavens:

“The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects. This is the discipline that deals with the Universe’s divine revolutions, the stars’ motions, sizes, distances, risings and settings…for what is more beautiful than heaven?”

Nicholaus Copernicus, Preface to De Revolutionibus

(Published in August, 2019 Sky and Telescope)

Comments

Revisions

    NGC 3718, Different Perspective, Kent Wood
    Original
  • Final
    NGC 3718, Different Perspective, Kent Wood
    B

B

Description: With QSO noted

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 3718, Different Perspective, Kent Wood