3C 273
| Galaxy 3C 273 |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Photo from the Hubble Space Telescope | |
| AladinLite | |
| Constellation | Virgin |
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Position equinox : J2000.0 , epoch : J2000.0 |
|
| Right ascension | 12 h 29 m 06.7 s |
| declination | + 02 ° 03 ′ 09 ″ |
| Appearance | |
| Morphological type | blazar; Sy1; LPQ FSRQ |
| Brightness (visual) | 12.86 mag |
| Physical data | |
| Redshift | 0.158339 +/- 0.000067 |
| Radial velocity | 47469 +/- 20 km / s |
|
Stroke distance v rad / H 0 |
(2117 ± 148) · 10 6 Lj (649.1 ± 45.4) Mpc |
| history | |
| Catalog names | |
| PGC 41121 • 2MASX J12290674 + 0203083 • HIP 60936 | |
3C 273 is the name of the apparently brightest quasar in the starry sky. 3C 273 was the first quasar discovered. The object is located in the constellation Virgo , stands near the ecliptic, and may occasionally be covered by the moon . Its redshift is z = 0.158, which gives its luminosity distance in the ΛCDM model to 746.9 Mpc or 2.436 billion light years . The mass could be determined to 886 ± 187 million solar masses via reverberation mapping .
discovery
Maarten Schmidt discovered in 1963 during a closer examination of the cosmic radio sources previously mapped by Martin Ryle that 3C 273 from Ryle's Third Cambridge Catalog ("3C") had a very high redshift that did not match its appearance as a single star that appeared to be punctiform. The radio galaxy 3C 273 was therefore, as it turned out, only "quasi stellar", which led to the name "Quasar".
Brightness and observation
3C 273 has an apparent magnitude of +12.86 mag and an absolute magnitude of −26.7 mag. This makes the quasar 300 times brighter than the Milky Way and 4.1 trillion times brighter than the sun .
On a clear night, the 3C 273 can be seen as a shining point in the eyepiece of a good amateur telescope . The object is located about 4 ° in the east-east-south “8 o'clock” direction from 16 Vir (5 mag). Due to the low apparent brightness, the quasar can only be found reliably with a very good star map. The star map below can be used for a rough orientation.
3C 273: star map
3C 273, taken with a ToUcam on a 10 ″ SCT with a focal length of 600 mm
The surrounding galaxy can be seen in a picture taken with a coronograph of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Web links
- Datasheet of 3C 273 at INTEGRAL Science Data Center (ESA)
- Parkes and 3C273 - The Identification of the First Quasar CSIRO Parkes Observatory (English)
- Recordings of 3C 273