This poster captures 18 of my favorite deep sky objects that are 1 billion light years or more away from us.
When I started this hobby, I was amazed that we could image, from our backyards, objects that are millions of light years away. Little did I anticipate being able to image objects that are 1 billion light years away or more! It is incomprehensible that we are able to look back in time at objects from so long ago.
Our images often contain tiny faint obscure background objects that are billions of light years away. This poster instead focuses on my favorite foreground distant subjects, objects that are still tiny but that we know something about. The objects include quasars, galaxy clusters, galaxy groups, galaxy chains, and interacting galaxy pairs.
Given their small size, these objects will never pop out of the page spectacularly as showcase objects like M16 or M31. Distant objects take some patience and imagination to appreciate, knowing that they existed 1 billion years ago and more.
Keep in mind that, because of the uncertainties involved, DSO distance estimates vary widely for the same object over time, so the distances shown are probably only accurate within +/- 30% or so. Also, since the universe has been expanding while the light of these distant objects has been moving towards us, these objects are actually quite a bit further away than the numbers shown.
These images were all taken with a long focal length telescope. My EdgeHD 11 setup has a focal length of 2800 mm.
Each of the object images on this poster has been posted to my Astrobin account. The links to each individual image are below:
All of the above objects are contained in my
Astrobin Billion Light Year Collection.
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