Re: Einstein's cross

I've observed the Double Quasar at Blue Canyon, in Alvin Huey's 22" and Gregg Blandin's 25", on the same night. In Gregg's scope, you could see both images, which were grayish and constantly visible. In Alvin's scope, they were blue, but were in and out of view in sync. That was maybe 12 or 13 years ago. I've since observed them at Shingletown (RIP) in my 22". It does take a very good night.
Clears,
Shneor Sherman

--- On Sun, 2/7/10, Steve Gottlieb <astrogottlieb@No-Spam> wrote:

From: Steve Gottlieb <astrogottlieb@No-Spam>
Subject: Re: [TAC] Einstein's cross
To: "TAC mailing list" <tac@No-Spam>
Date: Sunday, February 7, 2010, 11:43 AM

On Feb 7, 2010, at 9:51 AM, Julien Lecomte wrote:

> So it looks like, under the right conditions, an experienced observer
> can visually see it as a non-stellar object, not quite round, with a
> scope in the 14" range. I might give it a try this fall with my
> (hopefully ready by then) 16" scope. Has anybody on this list ever
> been able to see it as 4 clearly separated components?

Here are the individual V magnitudes for the components:  17.4, 17.4, 18.4, 18.7

But keep in mind all 4 components fit in a circle just 2 arcseconds in diameter.  In other words, cleanly resolving all 4 components is equivalent to trying to resolve four mag 17.4-18.7 stars in a smaller space than one pair of the Double-Double!

A much easier lensed quasar to try and resolve (but still very difficult!) is the Double Quasar in Ursa Major near NGC 3079.  The individual components are V = 16.4 and 16.8 and the separation is 6".   I've only seen it as a single faint "star" in an 18-inch, but some observers have split it (usually in a larger scope).

Steve

-- 
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-- 
Who's observing/imaging where? http://observers.org/OI-calendar/
GSSP is coming, July 10-14 http://www.goldenstatestarparty.org
TAC's imaging mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TAC-Imaging/