Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4536
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Quasar 3C 273, Åke Liljenberg
Quasar 3C 273
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Quasar 3C 273

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Quasar 3C 273, Åke Liljenberg
Quasar 3C 273
Powered byPixInsight

Quasar 3C 273

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Description

The 3C 273 quasar is probably the most distant object we can capture as amateur astrophotographers. I's located a mind-boggling 2.5 billion lightyears away. As a comparison, the NGC4536 galaxy in the upper-left corner is about 50 million lightyears away. That's only 1/50th of the distance to 3C 273! The reason we can still see it is due to the strong light emission from the jet stream of the supermassive black hole in its center, aiming straight towards us. The jet's intensity is about 4 trillion times the light from our sun.

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Quasar 3C 273, Åke Liljenberg