Hoag's Object

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AndyG
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Hoag's Object

Unread post by AndyG »

At a recent meeting Commander Cosmos put in a request to image Hoag's Object. At about 45 arc-seconds in diameter, this is only about 65 pixels on my CCD chip, a bit too small for me to be able to resolve much. It is also very dim: although the core is mag 16, the outer ring is much fainter.

The other problem I had was that monsoon season has arrived in the Southwest, and I now have very limited imaging time. Nevertheless, I was able to get about 6 hours of exposure between thunderstorms (10-minute subs, Luminance only) and came up with this image below.

So... what is it? Apparently it is a single galaxy consisting of a core of older stars surrounded by a ring of younger stars. Among ring-type galaxies, Hoag's object belongs to a rare class where the ring does not appear to have been created by an interaction with another galaxy. [Wikipedia]

Thanks Dan for the idea to point the scope at this bizarre and fascinating object!

Image
Andy
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Apollo XX
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by Apollo XX »

Really neat, Andy, and cool object! Even as small as it is I'm still seeing some structure in the outer ring.

Can't you just run out there and stick a barlow in? :shock: :lol:
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Chuck
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by Chuck »

Superb image Andy. I agree with Mike that some structure in the outer ring can be seen, and at only a mere 600 million light years distant! After a little googling on this object, there is another suspected ring galaxy (much more distant) that can be seen in the void between the inner core and the outer ring. Just amazing. Thanks for sharing.

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rjbokleman
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by rjbokleman »

The Universe never ceases to amaze as do Andy's images. :lol: Good thing it's ~100,000 ly wide (75K x 120K) (our own Milky Way is estimated to be ~150,000 ly) from our perspective or a mere 0.4 x 0.3 arc-minutes as Chuck noted being 600 million light years.

http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/21/lucas ... lucas.html
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AndyG
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by AndyG »

Thanks for the comments, guys. Ron, thanks for that link, great information there.
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Ronald Z
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by Ronald Z »

Andy, I think what you actually captured here was the remnants of the "big bang" :lol: :lol: :lol:
Just kidding....great capture indeed!

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AndyG
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Re: Hoag's Object

Unread post by AndyG »

astrogeek wrote:Hoag's Object is pretty cool, also. I did not realize that this gem is only 45" across - basically the apparent size of Jupiter at opposition. Since you are working with just 2130mm of focal length, I assume that you needed to zoom-in & crop during the processing.
Steve, yeah, it was very small on the chip, only about 65 pixels. I used 2x drizzle alignment which effectively doubled the resolution to 4096x4096 and 0.36"/px. Here's one of the calibrated subs: 24 arc-minutes square for the full frame. I was happy to see a little bit of detail in the ring after stacking despite the small size. The detail was definitely not visible in the individual subs!

Image
Andy
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