Mayalls Find: Nicholas Mayall (1906-1993), American astronomer and former director of Kitt Peak National Observatory, found something odd on his astro-photographic plates in 1940. The strange object looked like a question mark and its true nature was unknown. Today with much improved technology using a comparable telescope (to what he used), the object is now understood to be a rare ring-type galaxy that is formed through a violent galactic collision: skycenter.arizona.edu/gallery/Galaxies/Arp148 ( you will need to click on the image above or scroll around in the full view here : skycenter.arizona.edu/sites/skycenter.arizona.edu/files/arp148.jpg ) At a distance of 450 million light years away this is a very small object. There are few full-color ground-based images of it; but the Hubble Space Telescope image of this object is spectacular! Thus, this represents a challenge for an astrophotographer from the ground using a modest telescope and camera by comparison. Happily, this might be one of the highest resolution images of this object taken from the ground...
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 08:36:40 +0000
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