–––

Crosspost by Koinup - original here

location: Redshift

 "My warning meant nothing.

You're dancing in quicksand.

Why don't you watch where you're wandering?

Why don't you watch where you're stumbling?

You're wading knee deep and going in.

And you may never come back again.

I hope it sucks you down. down...down...down...

[...]" - "Swamp song", Tool

A large tail extending from two otherwise unperturbed-looking spirals. To the left of this group is a third member apparently involved in the interaction as indicated by the much less obvious stream extending in that direction.

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 68.30° clockwise from up.

Release Date: March 10, 2010 - Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study led by Alexander Kashlinsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., tracks this collective motion -- dubbed the "dark flow" -- to twice the distance originally reported, out to more than 2.5 billion light-years.

This all-sky view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way and has been desaturated to serve as the background for the dark flow plots. The image is derived from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog, which contains more than 1.5 million galaxies, and the Point Source Catalog, which holds nearly 500 million stars within the Milky Way. The galaxies are color coded for distances obtained by various surveys. The nearest sources are blue (redshifts less than 0.01), moderately distant sources (redshifts between 0.01 and 0.04) are green, and red represents the farthest sources that 2MASS resolves (between redshifts of 0.04 and 0.1)

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio/Dr. T.H. Jarrett/IPAC/Caltech

To learn more go to:

www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2010/10-023.html

To see other visualizations of Dark Flow go to:

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10580

One of the more normal spiral galaxies that made it into the catalog. Looks like some past interaction just finishing up. This one happens to be overlapping a background galaxy, which might possibly (conjecture on my part) have been mistaken for part of the foreground galaxy at the time it was cataloged.

Taking a look at the catalog itself, this is noted as "RING w. I/A COMP'NS" (ring with interacting companions) and this would appear to be two mistakes: that this is a ring galaxy, and that the background galaxy is a nearby companion. I will note, however, it does look a bit like a ring in the imagery they saw (edit: actually this seems to be imagery from NED, not necessarily the original plate), and that would logically put the backgrounder as a companion based on other assumptions about ring galaxies. Uh, astronomy is based on a lot of assumptions, sometimes.

Found a color image in the DES DR1 data.

legacysurvey.org/viewer?ra=80.6775&dec=-39.0634&z...

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 55.93° counter-clockwise from up.

Possibly the most jumbled galaxy I've ever seen.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 31.21° clockwise from up.

An irregular dwarf galaxy for today. It's kind of faint, and a bit difficult to brighten sufficiently above the noise floor, but now that I've done it I see a bit of star formation going on. I don't know why I just don't expect to see star formation in these galaxies, but it's almost always happening.

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 12.44° counter-clockwise from up.

A fortuitous observation of two smooth colliding galaxies which happen to host a type Ia supernova that erupted at least 5 days prior. SN 2019fkq can be seen as a bright pinpoint nestled between the cores of the two bright galaxies. Also visible in the left galaxy is a disk of dust encircling the nucleus, and numerous globular clusters are scattered about.

With the supernova measured at a redshift of .045, that puts these two galaxies at about 612 million light years away, and around 230000 light years across at the widest point. Two Milky Ways could fit across them.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 29.71° counter-clockwise from up.

After it!

An interesting field highlighting three interacting galaxies in the constellation of Pavo 190 million light years away. The tight group of three galaxies below centre frame comprises NGC 6769 (at the 6 o'clock position in the group), NGC 6770 (at the 3 o'clock position) and NGC 6771 (at the 11 o'clock position). The other two bright galaxies are IC 4842 (top of frame) and IC 4845 (at right of frame). There are also many other faint galaxies in the field worth a closer look.

Courtesy www.eso.org: It is obvious that stars and gas have been stripped off NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are starting to form a common envelope around them, in the shape of a Devil's Mask. There is also a tenuous bridge of stars between NGC 6769 and NGC 6771. All of these features testify to strong gravitational interaction between the three galaxies. The warped appearance of the dust lane in NGC 6771 might also be interpreted as more evidence of interactions. Moreover, NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are receding from us at a similar velocity of about 3800 km/s - a redshift just over 0.01 - while that of NGC 6771 is slightly larger, 4200 km/s.

SBIG STXL 11002M,Officina Stellare Pro RC 360

This is an 11.5 hour (L+Ls)RGB exposure ((330+90), 90, 90, 90 minutes) using 15 minute subs binned 1x1.

FOV 32.8 x 25.2 arc minutes @ 0.59 arc second/pixel.

Seeing for synthetic Luminance (Ls) and Luminance was average to poor - 2.1 to 2.7 arcsec FWHM.

only 26 shot combo, btw these stars r different in colors denoting redshift and blueshift of doppler effect

One of a pair of galaxies which are possibly interacting with one another. This is the more disrupted one. Many young stars and clouds of glowing gas are visible. The finger-like protrusions give this one an interesting shape. Kind of reminds me of a catcher's mitt. Its partner in the sky is here: flic.kr/p/2gtFUcc

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 0.84° counter-clockwise from up. (It my as well be up!)

Built in c4d rendered in Redshift

Outer space.

Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Pegasus is a visual grouping of five galaxies of which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The brightest member of the visual grouping is NGC7320. These galaxies are of interest because of their violent collisions. Four of the five galaxies in Stephan's Quintet form a physical association -,Hickson Compact Group 92.

NGC 7320 (to the lower left of the group) indicates a small redshift (790 km/s) while the other four exhibit large redshifts (near 6600 km/s). Since galactic redshift is proportional to distance, NGC 7320 is only a foreground projection and is ~39 million ly from Earth versus the 210-340 million ly of the other five. (Text source Wikipedia)

Planewave 17” Corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph f/4.5, FLI-PL6303E CCD – Remotely imaged T21 Mayhill New Mexico

35 mins Luminance, 5mins R, G & B

A good deal of star formation going on during this conglomerative process of galactic reorganization. Lots of brightly glowing hydrogen cloud structures are visible despite the wideband filter.

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 26.1° clockwise from up.

Interacting Galaxies NGC 5395 and NGC 5394 (ARP 84), and 2 Remote Quasars, Canes Venatici

NGC 5395 and NGC 5394 are gravitationally interacting spiral galaxies in the constellation of Canes Venatici, collectively known as the Heron Galaxy.They are also listed as ARP 84 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies which includes examples of unusual structures found among galaxies. The pair was first documented by W. Herschel in 1787, the same year he discovered two moons of Uranus. As the chart below indicates, the larger member, NGC 5395, is about 3.5 arcmin in angular size, and 11.68 in apparent magnitude (V). Its redshift-based recession velocity is 3,451 km/s, and light travel distance about 160 Mly. From this we can calculate its actual size to be around 160,000 ly - a giant galaxy, 25% larger than the Milky Way, and about 2.5 times brighter. Its morphological classification is SA(s)b pec - a peculiar unbarred spiral. Its NW quadrant appears deformed by gravitational interaction with NGC 5394, which either grazed or passed right through its spiral arms millions of years ago. The interface between the two galaxies has a distinct blue color revealing that the turbulence in the intragalactic medium caused by tidal forces precipitated rapid formation of numerous giant, hot, blue stars. The two galaxies are gravitationally bound, in the early stages of merging, and will eventually form a large lenticular galaxy. NGC 5395 has an active galactic nucleus of the Seyfert II type, indicating the presence of an actively accreting central supermassive black hole. Although the nucleus does not appear especially bright in the visible band, in the infrared it is as bright as the rest of the galaxy.

NGC 5394, the smaller member of the pair, is engaged in a slow cosmic dance with NGC 5395, where a single turn lasts hundreds of millions of years. Measurable properties suggest the galaxy is about 30% smaller than the Milky Way, but also 30% brighter, probably due to starburst activity caused by tidal interactions. Lying at a distance of 159 Mly, it is separated from its partner by only 1 Mly, offering a spectacular view of the night sky to any life forms intelligent enough to appreciate it. This galaxy is classified as a peculiar barred spiral, and also as a Luminous Infrared Galaxy, or a LIRG, which emits more energy in the IR band than all other bands combined. In the optical band, virtually all LIRGs are found to be interacting or merging galaxies with central supermassive black holes (SMBH). Their high intrinsic luminosity is due to active galactic nuclei (AGN) and also to very high rates of new star formation, between 100 and 3,000 times the rate observed in quiescent spiral galaxies. LIRGs are less prominent in the visible band because their active nuclei are surrounded by dense clouds of gas and dust which absorb intense ultraviolet radiation from the central SMBH, and re-emit the energy in the form of heat in the infrared band.

www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/basic-extragal...

The field is strewn with numerous distant galaxies, most of which carry no identifier. Properties of the more prominent ones are listed in the chart below. Of these are notable 2MASX J13582258+3734549, which shows what the Milky Way would look like at a distance of 700 Mly, and LEDA 2096860, which may also be a LIRG as it is nearly 15 times brighter in the IR than in the visible band.

The most remote recorded objects by far are two quasars, SDSS J135841.39+373232.3 and SDSS J135859.70+373240.5, whose light is reaching us from the dawn of the Universe. They are respectively 10.9 and 11.2 billion light years distant, and 2,500 and 2,000 times brighter than the Milky. When their photons were emitted, the Solar System would not have come into existence for another 6 billion years. But, from the photons' perspective, travelling at the speed of light time does not pass, and their journey was instantaneous.

Image details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105mm, Paramount GT GEM

-25 x 300 sec subs, OSC, 2x drizzle, 25% crop

-Software: DSS, XnView, StarNet++, StarTools v 1.3 and 1.7

Well, it's been a while since I did a Prop15446 galaxy. This one was PI Julianne Dalcanton's favorite, so of course I had to. Featured are two interacting galaxies, one clearly full of star formation and dust with the other one smooth and not apparently doing much beyond participating in the interaction. The clumpy, dusty star-forming galaxy, perhaps once a spiral, now visibly being pulled into the smooth galaxy.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 8.21° clockwise from up.

Two irregularly shaped galaxies, both swirling about one another in an ongoing interaction. Pockets of star formation dot both, stippling the cosmic canvas with clusters of young stars.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 25.79° clockwise from up.

NASA/ESA Hubble Release Date: March 25, 2010

This image shows a smoothed reconstruction of the total (mostly dark) matter distribution in the COSMOS field, created from data taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. It was inferred from the weak gravitational lensing distortions that are imprinted onto the shapes of background galaxies. The colour coding indicates the distance of the foreground mass concentrations as gathered from the weak lensing effect. Structures shown in white, cyan, and green are typically closer to us than those indicated in orange and red. To improve the resolution of the map, data from galaxies both with and without redshift information were used.

The new study presents the most comprehensive analysis of data from the COSMOS survey. The researchers have, for the first time ever, used Hubble and the natural "weak lenses" in space to characterise the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Simon (University of Bonn) and T. Schrabback (Leiden Observatory)

To learn more abou this image go to:

www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic1005.html

For more information about Goddard Space Flight Center go here:

www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html

NGC 4535 (UGC 7727), Virgo, The Lost Galaxy of Copeland

NGC 4535 is a large galaxy in the constellation of Virgo, first documented by W. Herschel in 1785. It is classified as SAB(s)c, indicating intermediate morphology between barred and unbarred spirals, no ring, and loosely wound spiral arms. L.S. Copeland named it "The Lost Galaxy" due to its hazy, pale appearance under visual observation trough a smaller telescope. Approximately the size of the Milky Way, it is one of the larger members of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, and appears to be moving with a "peculiar velocity" through space away from us as it orbits the cluster's center of gravity. This is suggested by the fact that its redshift is significantly higher than predicted from its redshift-independent distance measurements. Since redshift based distance estimates do not correct for peculiar motion through space, redshift-independent methods, such as the Cepheid period-luminosity relation, are regarded as more accurate for nearby galaxies closer than ~140 Mly (z < 0.01).

Based on the minor / major axis ratio of the galaxy's outline, NGC4535 is inclined to our line of sight by approximately 30*. This offers an unobstructed view of the spiral arms, dust lanes around the bulge, a short bar crossing the core, and a small, intensely bright active galactic nucleus of the Hii LINER type powered by a central supermassive black hole. The bright blue floccules within the spiral arms are "OB associations", or immense clusters of new, hot, blue giant stars. A number of curved, elongated structures in the disk strongly resemble "stellar streams", or gravitationally stretched remnants of merged dwarf galaxies. Many major galaxies in the Virgo Cluster show evidence of rapid mass assembly through the process of dwarf galaxy accretion. On the annotated image, two faint, diffuse objects which I suspect to be dwarf candidates are marked as DC.

NGC4535 has been the subject of extensive optical and radio telescope studies on the evolution of massive stars, the distribution of atomic and ionized hydrogen gas, and the interactions between the galaxy and the intergalactic medium within the Virgo Cluster.

SDSS J123421.43+081425.8, along the N perimeter of NGC4535, is identified as a small galaxy with a redshift of 0.00615, corresponding to a redshift based distance of 85.11 Mly. If this galaxy were subject to a similar peculiar velocity as NGC4535, it would actually be half the derived size, lying in the foreground. Unfortunately, redshift-independent distance measurements have not been done for this object.

Derived properties of identified faint objects are listed in the chart on the annotated image. The most remote are five quasars, three of which lie beyond the cosmic event horizon, as their recession velocities in the present cosmological epoch are superluminal. Two of them, marked with (+) appear significantly brighter than their listed apparent magnitudes. Many quasars are variable up to several magnitudes with periods ranging from days to years, depending on the inflow of matter available for accretion. The most intrinsically luminous object is LBQS 1232+0815, which is nearly 5,500 times brighter than the Milky Way. The most distant quasar is SDSS J123352.16+080527.4 (z = 2.76700), lying at the light travel distance (lookback time) of 11.33 Bly.

Image details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105 mm, Paramount GT GEM

-OSC 27 x 300 sec, 2x drizzle, 50% linear crop

-Software: DSS, XnView, Starnet++ 2, StarTools 1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator 3

Head gear, jacket. (32 iterations) custom prompts.

Stephan's Quintet, (HCG 92, Arp 319), NGC 7320 Galaxy Group, Pegasus

This tight visual grouping of five galaxies was discovered in 1877 by Edouard Stephan at the Marseilles Observatory with the revolutionary 80 cm Foucault reflector, which was among the first to use a mirror of silvered glass, instead of speculum metal. The Quintet is the first compact group of galaxies ever documented. It has been carefully studied by numerous observatories ever since because it shows three galaxies in the process of merging, NGC7318-A, NGC7318-B, and NGC7319. All three appear to be barred spiral galaxies, severely distorted by tidal interactions. All display elongated and disrupted spiral arms, faint tidal tails of stars and gas drawn out from the galaxies into intergalactic space, and numerous bright blue regions of countless new stars ignited by gravitational perturbations of hydrogen clouds. Hubble's multi-band images in visible and infrared light reveal stellar populations of several age groups, indicating that starburst activity occurred in different epochs over hundreds of millions of years. In the long run, after billions of years, the three galaxies are destined to merge into a single giant elliptical galaxy. Based on their redshifts, and assuming Hubble Flow, the three galaxies lie at light travel distances between 267 and 312 million light years. However, they are probably much closer together. Due to strong gravitational interaction, they must have high peculiar velocities through space, which renders their distance estimates based on Hubble Flow unreliable.

www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/basic-extragal...

The fourth galaxy in the group is a modest elliptical galaxy, NGC 7317, gravitationally bound to its companions, but so far morphologically unaffected. These four galaxies are also gravitationally bound to the distant members of the Deer Lick Group, from which they are separated by only 35 arcmin.

www.cloudynights.com/topic/802766-ngc-7331-deer-lick-gala...

The most prominent galaxy in Stephan's Quintet is NGC 7320, a bright dwarf unbarred spiral which is actually 8 times closer than the other members of the visual grouping, and is gravitationally unbound to them. Based on its measurable properties (redshift, apparent magnitude, and angular size), it lies at a light travel distance of 36.4 Mly, receding at 706 km/s due to Hubble Flow (the expansion of space). Its diameter is only about 25,000 ly, five times smaller than the Milky Way's, and absolute magnitude some twenty times fainter. Blue color indicates a high star formation rate and a profusion of large, young, and very hot stars.

The most distant galaxy in the field is 2MFGC 17021, a large edge-on spiral, approximately the same size as the Milky Way, but about twice as bright. It is 784 Mly distant, receding at 17,113 km/s.

Image Details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105 mm

-Paramount GT GEM

-25 x 300 sec subs, OSC, 2x drizzle, 50% linear crop

-Software: DSS, XnView, StarTools v 1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator v 2

Inverted.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Another dwarf irregular galaxy which I put off processing due to lack of interest. This one has a more pronounced spiral-like structure, although I would still hesitate to call it a spiral. The large star-forming nebulas are nice.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 30.17° clockwise from up.

Shape gradations.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our Universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early Universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe’s expansion rate.

To make these discoveries, the team analyzed imaging data obtained as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. Webb is ideal for finding extremely distant supernovae because their light is stretched into longer wavelengths — a phenomenon known as cosmological redshift.

Prior to Webb’s launch, only a handful of supernovae had been found above a redshift of 2, which corresponds to when the universe was only 3.3 billion years old — just 25% of its current age. The JADES sample contains many supernovae that exploded even further in the past, when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. Previously, researchers used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to view supernovae from when the universe was in the “young adult” stage. With JADES, scientists are seeing supernovae when the universe was in its “teens” or “pre-teens.” In the future, they hope to look back to the “toddler” or “infant” phase of the universe.

To discover the supernovae, the team compared multiple images taken up to one year apart and looked for sources that disappeared or appeared in those images. These objects that vary in observed brightness over time are called transients, and supernovae are a type of transient. In all, the JADES Transient Survey Sample team uncovered 79 supernovae in a patch of sky only about the thickness of a grain of rice held at arm’s length.

The team identified a number of high-redshift supernovae, including the farthest one ever spectroscopically confirmed, at a redshift of 3.6. Its progenitor star exploded when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old. It is a so-called core-collapse supernova, an explosion of a massive star.

These findings were presented in a press conference at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin. Learn more about these results here.

[Image description: Webb image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space. There are small red blobs; larger, fuzzy white or blueish ball-shaped masses with bright centers; white, pink, or blue disc shapes; clear spiral structures; and barely discernible specs. Eighty-three of the smaller objects in the image are circled in green. Some of the circles are close together; some are far apart; some overlap. There is no apparent pattern in the distribution.]

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; CC BY 4.0

NGC 7331, Deer Lick Galaxy Group, Pegasus

NGC 7331, also identified as UGC 12113, PGC 69327, and Caldwell 30, is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Pegasus. It is the brightest and largest member of a visual field of galaxies called the Deer Lick Galaxy Group that includes NGC 7325, 7326, 7335, 7336, 7337, 7340, and LEDA 2051985, all of which lie in the background at distances between 290 and 400 million light years. The group was first documented in 1784 by William Herschel.

Based on its measurable features (redshift of 0.002732, apparent magnitude 9.48, and angular size 10.47) we can estimate the following NGC 7331 physical properties: actual diameter 115,000 ly, absolute magnitude -20.86, distance 38 million ly, and recession velocity due to the expansion of the Universe (Hubble flow) 818 km/s. The galaxy is remarkably similar to the Milky Way in size and luminosity, but not strictly speaking in morphology. Although both are spiral galaxies, NGC 7331 is unbarred, while the Milky Way is presently thought to be a barred spiral. Further, NGC 7331 has peculiar features which are most likely due to a merger of large component galaxies in the remote past. Unlike the majority of spiral galaxies, its central bulge and the spiral arm disk rotate in opposite directions, and the central bulge is eccentric toward the N relative to the disk and the stellar halo.

Dwarf galaxy LGG 459 lies in-line with the S edge of the NGC 7331 disk, may be merging with it, and may have gravitationally disrupted the S spiral arm into 4 or 5 branches. Although redshift based distance between the two galaxies is around 4 Mly (assuming redshift is due exclusively to Hubble flow), the actual distance between them could be much smaller if LGG 459 redshift were in part due to "peculiar velocity" through space toward the background, away from the observer.

Spectroscopic analysis of NGC 7331 central region revealed an Hii/LINER active galactic nucleus. Filho et al. (2004) reported core radio luminosity 10 times higher and X-ray emission 10,000 times higher than the Sagittarius A* source in the center of our Galaxy. These studies suggest the presence of an obscured central supermassive black hole of approximately 175 million Solar masses, about 44 times larger than the Milky Way's

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401593

The distant members of the Deer Lick Group are gravitationally bound to each other and also to the nearby Stephan's Quintet (NGC 7320) Group. Even at the scale of this image, NGC 7337 and 7336 show evidence of tidal interactions. The S side of the field contains a very remote galaxy cluster whose members are annotated with letter G. Unfortunately, none of these galaxies carry identifiers in Simbad or NED extragalactic databases. Comparing their average angular size to that of the Deer Lick Group, I very roughly estimate their distance at 2 billion light years.

Image Details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105mm

-Paramount GT GEM

-25 x 300 sec subs, OSC, 2x drizzle, 50% linar crop

-Software: DSS, XnView, StarNet++, StarTools v1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator v2

The incredibly distant galaxy GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the Big Bang, was initially discovered with deep imaging from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Now, an international team of astronomers has definitively identified powerful hydrogen emission from this galaxy at an unexpectedly early period in the Universe’s history, a probable sign that we are seeing some of the first hot stars from the dawn of the Universe.

This image shows the galaxy GS-z13-1 (the red dot at centre), imaged with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) programme. These data from NIRCam allowed researchers to identify GS-z13-1 as an incredibly distant galaxy, and to put an estimate on its redshift value. Webb’s unique infrared sensitivity is necessary to observe galaxies at this extreme distance, whose light has been redshifted into infrared wavelengths during its long journey across the cosmos.

To confirm the galaxy’s redshift, the team turned to Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument. With new observations permitting advanced spectroscopy of the galaxy’s emitted light, the team not only confirmed GS-z13-1’s redshift of 13.0, they also revealed the strong presence of a type of ultraviolet radiation called Lyman-α emission. This is a telltale sign of the presence of newly forming stars, or a possible active galactic nucleus in the galaxy, but at a much earlier time than astronomers had thought possible. The result holds great implications for our understanding of the Universe.

[Image description: A small, zoomed-in area of deep space. Numerous galaxies in various shapes are visible, most of them small, but two are quite large and glow brightly. In the very centre is a small red dot, an extremely faraway galaxy. Two lines of light enter the left side: these are diffraction spikes, visual artefacts, caused by a nearby bright star just out of view.]

Read more

Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES Collaboration, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA), J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen, A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb; CC BY 4.0

They seem close to evenly matched. Interestingly, both seem to have some brighter spots that could potentially be considered a place where most of the mass is, but I am unable to discern a nucleus for either one.

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 26.1° counter-clockwise from up.

The Abell catalog of rich clusters of galaxies is an all-sky catalog of more than 4,073 galaxy clusters of nominal redshift z <= 0.2. This catalog was compiled by George Abell’s original “Northern Survey” of 1958, which had only 2,712 clusters, with a further 1,361 clusters – the “Southern Survey” of 1989 – from those parts of the south celestial hemisphere that had been omitted from the earlier survey. Abell1736 is a rarely imaged rich galaxy cluster in the constellation of Hydra that comprise hundreds of galaxies sparse on less than two degrees of sky. Unfortunately none of these galaxies is particularly large to show many details with amateur telescopes.

If you would like to see larger sizes of this image please visit my homepage at www.glitteringlights.com

Dusty, peculiar spiral galaxy with apparently only one arm, if it can be considered an arm. One wonders if the apparent disk shape is true or merely a line-of-sight illusion. Clustered texture to the stars indicates a lot of star formation is probably going on.

Another one from Prop 15446. Couldn't find an appropriate color source for this one. DSS was about it, and that wouldn't be much better than completely artificial color. V* TW Hor, a fairly bright star, lies about 4.75' northwest (off the bottom of this frame) from the galaxy, further complicating the use of survey data.

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 106.03° clockwise from up.

The Redshift Star Fighter 's ultra-sensitive spacial array is used to quickly lock the rail gun onto phase shifting enemies.

Art.

cargocollective.com/jimkeaton

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light - 1 billion kilometer per hour - not even quasars. To know more about quasars see the animation below ...

Digitally altered in Photoshop from this photo kindly provided by Patrick Boury pbo31.

✰ This photo was featured on The Epic Global Showcase here: flavoredtape.com/post/155887905474

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aspenexcel:

Redshift

Shape shift.

The incredibly distant galaxy GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the Big Bang, was initially discovered with deep imaging from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Now, an international team of astronomers has definitively identified powerful hydrogen emission from this galaxy at an unexpectedly early period in the Universe’s history, a probable sign that we are seeing some of the first hot stars from the dawn of the Universe.

This image shows the location of the galaxy GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field, as well as the galaxy itself, imaged with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) programme. These data from NIRCam allowed researchers to identify GS-z13-1 as an incredibly distant galaxy, and to put an estimate on its redshift value. Webb’s unique infrared sensitivity is necessary to observe galaxies at this extreme distance, whose light has been redshifted into infrared wavelengths during its long journey across the cosmos.

To confirm the galaxy’s redshift, the team turned to Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument. With new observations permitting advanced spectroscopy of the galaxy’s emitted light, the team not only confirmed GS-z13-1’s redshift of 13.0, they also revealed the strong presence of a type of ultraviolet radiation called Lyman-α emission. This is a telltale sign of the presence of newly forming stars, or a possible active galactic nucleus in the galaxy, but at a much earlier time than astronomers had thought possible. The result holds great implications for our understanding of the Universe.

[Image description: An area of deep space is covered by a scattering of galaxies in many shapes and in colours ranging from blue to whitish to orange, as well as a few nearby stars. A very small square is shown zoomed in, in a box to the left. In the centre a red dot, a faraway galaxy, is marked out by lines and labelled 'Redshift (z)=13', signifying its extreme distance. Two much larger galaxies are labelled 'z=0.63' and 'z=0.70'. The box is titled 'JADES-GS-z13-1'.]

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Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES Collaboration, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA), J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen, A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb; CC BY 4.0

NGC 7479, Caldwell 44, Pegasus, Propeller Galaxy

NGC7479 is a distorted barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Pegasus, discovered by W. Herschel in 1784. With apparent diameter of 4.4 arcmin, and apparent magnitude of 10.85 (V), visual observation calls for large apertures. However, its basic structures are evident photographically with modest telescopes. From its measurable properties we can derive light travel distance (lookback time) of 110 million light years, redshift recession velocity of 2,379 km/s, actual diameter of 140,000 ly, and absolute magnitude of -21.83 (V), approximately 1.5 times as bright as the Milky Way. NGC7479 has an active galactic nucleus (AGN) which is 8.5 times brighter in the near IR (z filter) than in the visible band, and which emits narrow spectral lines of weakly ionized elements. These characteristics classify it as a Seyfert 2 and a LINER galaxy. It is powered by an actively accreting central supermassive black hole (SMBH) obscured by a large, dense cloud of light-absobing gas and dust. The nucleus is also active at radio frequencies, suggesting the SMBH has polar jets emitting synchrotron radiation. Bright blue floccules in the spiral arms and even within the bar are OB Associations, or vast clusters of recently formed blue giant stars which emit most of their energy in the ultraviolet band. NGC7479 is an isolated field galaxy with no nearby neighbors. Starburst activity, several stellar streams, and gravitational distortion in the W spiral arm are thought to have been caused by a merger with one or more dwarf satellite galaxies between 300 and 100 million years ago.

As the annotated image illustrates, different spectral bands reveal different details within a galaxy. In the ultraviolet band (GALEX), the most prominent features are OB associations, starburst regions, and reflection nebulae. The compact, round UV signal overlapping the N arm of the bar may be the remnant nucleus of a merged dwarf galaxy. The NGC7479 nucleus is not prominent because it is surrounded by a thick layer of gas and dust which absorb and scatter predominantly UV light. However, the brightest feature on the infrared (2MASS) image of the galaxy is precisely the main galactic nucleus with a central SMBH, because longer wavelengths are less obsured. The bulge and the bar are also distinctive due to the presence of ancient cool and red Population II stars. Radio frequency imaging of the galaxy reveals the presence of a bright jet-like feature, centered on the nucleus, and extending through the bar about 20,000 light years in the N and in the S direction. The jet's spiral morphology mildly curves in the direction opposite to that of the stellar and gaseous spiral arms, suggesting that the two structures may be counter-rotating. Jet bending can be caused by precession of the central SMBH accretion disk, by the presence of a binary central SMBH, and/or an off center merger with another galaxy. Based on the rate of expansion and the maximum distance from the nucleus, the jet is felt to be less than 10 million years old.

A large galaxy cluster is visible in the remote background at an estimated light travel distance of 1.5 to 2 billion light years. Only two of these have assigned identifiers. Their measurable and derived properties are listed in the chart on the annotated image.

Image details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105 mm, Paramount GT GEM,

-OSC 34 x 300 sec, 2x drizzle, 50% linear crop,

-Software: DSS, XnView, StarNet++ v2, StarTools v1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator v3

Messier 64, M64, NGC 4826 Coma Berenices, The Black Eye Galaxy

M64 is a weakly-barred spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices discovered by Pigott in 1779, and independently by Messier in 1780. It is distinctive for a dark band of light-absorbing dust around a bright nucleus, an outer ring-like structure, and an inner ring structure with tightly bound spiral arms. The galaxy has a Seyfert II type of active galactic nucleus which is bright in the infrared band, displays narrow emission line spectrum of weakly ionized gas, and is a weak source of radio waves. The nucleus is powered by a central supermassive black hole. The interstellar gas and dust medium studied at radio frequencies reveals two counter-rotating rings suggesting a possible merger with a smaller gas-rich galaxy. Doppler shifts of stars within the galaxy manifest no such counter-rotation.

Based on its measurable properties (redshift, angular size , and apparent magnitude), we can calculate M64 diameter to be 58,000 ly and absolute magnitude -20.27, approximately half the values of the Milky Way. Its light travel distance (lookback time) is 18.64 million ly, and redshift based recession velocity 402 km/s.

Four transient events have been recorded within M64. One was an optical event, marked on the annotated image with X, and three were SPRITES (eSPecially Red Intermediate Luminosity Transient Events) marked with S, detected in the mid-infrared band without optical counterparts. Transient events are typically brighter than novae and fainter than supernovae, but their duration is much shorter, measured in days. The cause of transient events is not conclusively known. Possible mechanisms include star collisions, massive WR star ejections, "failed supernovae", and brief "nonthermal" synchrotron emissions from intermediate-mass black holes. www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/transient-opti...

The field is strewn with very distant galaxies, most of which have no identifier. The identified ones seem to cluster in two groups at distances around 960 Mly and 1.4 Bly.

The image also includes four quasars, two of which are receding faster than the speed of light in the present cosmological epoch. They have crossed the cosmic event horizon, and the light they are presently emitting can never reach us. 2XMM J125627.9+215406 (Z = 1.87234) redshift or relativistic recession velocity was 234,974 km/s when the light was emitted nearly 10.2 billion years ago. As the Universe expanded, the object's distance and recession velocity also increased. In the present epoch, the quasar's calculated comoving or proper distance is 16.366 billion ly, and its proper recession velocity is superluminal at 353,685 km/s. The most distant object is quasar SDSS J125613.79+214018.1 (z = 2.082), at the very threshold of the limiting magnitude. Its light travel distance is 10.52 billion ly, proper distance 17.42 billion ly, and proper recession velocity superluminal at 376,359 km/s. With absolute magnitude of -28.26, this quasar is nearly a thousand times brighter than our entire galaxy.

Image details:

TSAPO100Q telescope, Sigma APO 1.4X tele-extender, 100x812 mm

Canon T3i modified camera, Astronomik L3 filter

iEQ30pro mount, Orion SSAGpro 60mm f/4 autoguider

32 x 240 sec subexposures, iso 1600, 30 darks, 30 bias frames, 2x drizzle, 50% linear crop

Software: PHD2, DSS, XnView, StarNet++ v2, StarTools v1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator v2

Stephan's Quintet, (HCG 92, Arp 319), NGC 7320 Galaxy Group, Pegasus

This tight visual grouping of five galaxies was discovered in 1877 by Edouard Stephan at the Marseilles Observatory with the revolutionary 80 cm Foucault reflector, which was among the first to use a mirror of silvered glass, instead of speculum metal. The Quintet is the first compact group of galaxies ever documented. It has been carefully studied by numerous observatories ever since because it shows three galaxies in the process of merging, NGC7318-A, NGC7318-B, and NGC7319. All three appear to be barred spiral galaxies, severely distorted by tidal interactions. All display elongated and disrupted spiral arms, faint tidal tails of stars and gas drawn out from the galaxies into intergalactic space, and numerous bright blue regions of countless new stars ignited by gravitational perturbations of hydrogen clouds. Hubble's multi-band images in visible and infrared light reveal stellar populations of several age groups, indicating that starburst activity occurred in different epochs over hundreds of millions of years. In the long run, after billions of years, the three galaxies are destined to merge into a single giant elliptical galaxy. Based on their redshifts, and assuming Hubble Flow, the three galaxies lie at light travel distances between 267 and 312 million light years. However, they are probably much closer together. Due to strong gravitational interaction, they must have high peculiar velocities through space, which renders their distance estimates based on Hubble Flow unreliable.

www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/basic-extragal...

The fourth galaxy in the group is a modest elliptical galaxy, NGC 7317, gravitationally bound to its companions, but so far morphologically unaffected. These four galaxies are also gravitationally bound to the distant members of the Deer Lick Group, from which they are separated by only 35 arcmin.

www.cloudynights.com/topic/802766-ngc-7331-deer-lick-gala...

The most prominent galaxy in Stephan's Quintet is NGC 7320, a bright dwarf unbarred spiral which is actually 8 times closer than the other members of the visual grouping, and is gravitationally unbound to them. Based on its measurable properties (redshift, apparent magnitude, and angular size), it lies at a light travel distance of 36.4 Mly, receding at 706 km/s due to Hubble Flow (the expansion of space). Its diameter is only about 25,000 ly, five times smaller than the Milky Way's, and absolute magnitude some twenty times fainter. Blue color indicates a high star formation rate and a profusion of large, young, and very hot stars.

The most distant galaxy in the field is 2MFGC 17021, a large edge-on spiral, approximately the same size as the Milky Way, but about twice as bright. It is 784 Mly distant, receding at 17,113 km/s.

Image Details:

-Remote Takahashi TOA 150 x 1105 mm

-Paramount GT GEM

-25 x 300 sec subs, OSC, 2x drizzle, 30% linear crop

-Software: DSS, XnView, StarTools v 1.3 and 1.7, Cosmological Calculator v 2

On August 17, 2025, on the 16th anniversary of the start of my study of astronomy by self-education, I made calculations of the sky coordinates and requested shooting on remote telescopes (with parameters according to my calculations, for example, shutter speeds and number of images) to search for new astronomical objects. When I received and viewed one of the series of images, I found a star in them, which, upon checking in various information sources, turned out to be an already known supernova, but even such a find is unusual for me, because in several years of searching in images, I did not come across even a single known supernova.

When checking 5 photographs (of the sky region in the constellation Pisces) with exposures of 300 seconds taken on this date with another remote telescope, the 0.51-m f/6.8 reflector T59 of iTelescope.Net, which is located at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, at the very edge of the images (only 12 arcseconds from the edges of the frames!) I saw a relatively faint star (only about +20 mag), which was absent from the archival photographs: only the galaxy SDSS J004819.14+075856.8 was visible in them nearby. I assumed it was a supernova in this galaxy, and when I checked, this star was unknown, so I measured its position and brightness, then sent the information to the Transient Name Server (as of January 1, 2016 the Transient Name Server (TNS) is the official IAU mechanism for reporting new astronomical transients such as supernova candidates) with the status as a possible supernova, and it was published there: www.wis-tns.org/object/2025umq with temporary designation AT 2025umq, and as PSN J00481888+0759006 on the CBAT TOCP www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/unconf/followups/J00481888+07590...

On August 19 I made remote observations of this star with a two-metre-aperture robotic Liverpool Telescope (LT — on the Canary island of La Palma) to confirm the reality of the object, and it worked out, I also made new measurements of its position and brightness (to refine them): about +20.3 mag. On August 23 and 24 I additionally made photometric observations with the LT to get more such information about this star. I am attaching a photo (color) for August 24 (stacked 3x60 sec. with g’, r’ and i’ filters, 9 frames in total).

On August 20, according to my calculations and request, the spectrum of this star was obtained at the Liverpool Telescope, as a result of its analysis, this star was classified as a fading Type Ia supernova at redshift of 0.159 in the galaxy SDSS J004819.14+075856.8, with assignment it the designation SN 2025umq. On August 27, the corresponding ATel #17361 www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=17361 was published on the website «The Astronomer's Telegram» about the discovery, photometry and classification of this supernova with my name as the first author.

I will add that later I saw in one of the scientific sources on the Internet that this supernova was previously detected by ZTF sky survey (the light curve shows a maximum brightness of about +20 mag around August 10, and the first detection was on July 25), but for some reason information about it was not sent to the TNS, so I am its official discoverer.

It is important that this is the first supernova discovered by me personally (in the images obtained - at my request - from a remote telescope), because earlier I discovered two supernovae SN 2022bsi and SN 2022jhn only in the images of the CRTS sky survey, participating in the supernova search project, so I am the first co-author of those discoveries. In addition, I consider it's luck that supernova SN 2025umq was not outside the boundaries of the images, because it was very close near the edges of the frames. Also note that those two supernovae were much closer (at redshifts of 0.0369 and 0.013) to our galaxy, while this supernova is distant enough: it has a redshift of 0.159, which means it is more than 2 billion light years away, so it was a big luck that I, an amateur astronomer, was able to discover so low brightness supernova! I should add that usually such faint supernovae are rarely classified using the Liverpool Telescope (because too long exposures are needed to obtain a good signal-to-noise ratio, so it is more practical to use larger telescopes, but I did not have the opportunity to use a larger telescope to study this supernova, so I tried to do it at the Liverpool Telescope), but in this case it was possible to do so with the LT - due to the sufficient distance of this supernova from the center of the host galaxy.

Now I am the discoverer (only on the basis of self-education) of 82 variable stars, 10 planetary nebula candidates (and co-author of discovery of 5), 3 supernovae (two co-authored and one personally), 4 probably physical binaries pairs of stars, 3 novae in M31; 3 transients (possible supernovae) and 8 asteroids; author of scientific papers in astronomy, which were published in scientific journals (including peer-reviewed) and co-author of the papers, for example, the most recent «GOTO065054+593624: An 8.5 mag amplitude dwarf nova identified in real time via Kilonova Seekers» was published doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202553823 in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A). I have given online presentations during several international conferences in astronomy, for example, e-Poster during the XXXIst General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAUGA 2022), my paper "The contribution of the modern amateur astronomer to the science of astronomy" (based on this my e-Poster) was published arxiv.org/abs/2212.12543 in arXiv.

Script

Better resolution: nicolasillustrations.com/project/ngc7497-lrgb

NGC 7497 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Pegasus. Its velocity relative to the cosmic microwave background corresponds to a Hubble distance of 19.8 ± 1.4 Mpc (approximately 64.6 million light-years). Discovered by the German-British astronomer William Herschel in 1784, it was also observed by the British astronomer John Herschel in 1825.

NGC 7497 has a luminosity class of VI and a broad HI line. With a surface brightness of 14.38 mag/arcsec², it is categorized as a low surface brightness galaxy (LSB), where LSB galaxies, of diffuse (D) type, have a surface brightness at least one magnitude fainter than the ambient night sky.

Currently, twenty-two non-redshift-based measurements indicate a distance of 17.864 ± 3.715 Mpc (approximately 58.3 million light-years), which is consistent with Hubble distance values.

During visual observations, this spiral galaxy appears as a faint grayish bar. However, on extended photographic exposures, a different spectacle unfolds. The accumulation of photons reveals that NGC 7497 is, in reality, "captured" in an extensive molecular cloud named LBN 419, listed in Lynds' Catalog of Bright Nebulae, which includes 1791 bright nebulae. Molecular clouds are celestial regions where gas and dust conglomerate, primarily composed of molecular hydrogen (H2). These cold regions also serve as stellar nurseries, where new stars are born. It's worth noting that LBN 419 is actually much closer, located within our own galaxy.

RA 23h 08m 58.9s

DEC +11° 11' 37.2"

SIZE 30.5 x 20.1 arcmin

ORIENTATION Up is 184.4 degrees E of N

CONSTELLATION Pegasus

MAGNITUDE 12.2

DISTANCE 64 million ly

Captured July 2023

Technical Details

Data acquisition: Telescope.Live

Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND

Location: El Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, CHILE

L: 32*300s

R: 32*300s

G: 35*300s

B: 32*300s

Optics: PLANEWAVE CDK24 @ F/6.5

Mount: Mathis MI-1000/1250 with absolute encoders

CCD: QHY 600M Pro

Astrodon LRGB 2GEN

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 13.46° counter-clockwise from up.

Chaos.

Data from the following proposal is used to create this image:

Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems

All channels: ACS/WFC F606W

North is 65.77° clockwise from up.