J1144, Fastest-growing black hole of past 9 billion years

[Dalia]

Astronomers from The Australian National University have led an international collaboration to discover the fastest-growing supermassive black hole from the last nine billion years of the Universe’s history.

The energetic supermassive black hole, known as a quasar, is consuming an enormous amount of material - the equivalent of swallowing the mass of Earth on a per-second basis. This powers the behemoth to shine 7,000 times brighter than all of the Milky Way’s stars combined. And whilst it is located at a redshift distance of z = 0.83 (about 11.4 billion light-years away), it’s bright enough for backyard astronomers to even capture it with their home telescopes.

Supermassive black holes reside in the centre of most galaxies, and unlike their stellar-mass smaller cousins - which have masses in the range of five - 150 times that of the Sun, these gargantuan objects have masses in the millions or billions of times that of our parent star.

The Fastest Growing Supermassive Black Hole in 9 Billion Years | Spaceaustralia

 

[Meister]

Question....can we who live in the northern hemisphere be privy to observe this quasar?

 

[ReinyDays]

Twelfth magnitude is a tough find with a backyard telescope ... unless you live on a mountain top ...

J1144–4308 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[toobfreak]

Question....can we who live in the northern hemisphere be privy to observe this quasar?

Gee, Meister, you are making me work today!

The answer is yes and no. Blackhole J1144 is down in Centaurus near the Southern Cross, Crux. If you are at +20N latitude on an exceptional night, you just might be able to catch it now along your southern horizon in a telescope. Obviously, the farther south the better.

If you can read star charts, I've plotted its exact location at the + sign at the end of the arrow.

It is at RA 11h44m and Dec. -43°08s. It is theoretically just above my horizon here at about 40° N, but I know that in practice that extinction by the atmosphere is just too great to see anything telescopically that low in the sky; you are just looking through too much atmosphere.

However, there is a similar quasar in Virgo we CAN see called 3C273, but it is only about an eighth as bright as this one.

 

[toobfreak]

Twelfth magnitude is a tough find with a backyard telescope ... unless you live on a mountain top ...

Not at all. A 5" refractor can see that faint! 3C273 is doable with backyard equipment and it is 8X fainter. Using a Gen.III PMT, I've seen to the 18th magnitude with an OTA I can carry under my arm!

You clearly are out of your domain.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Fastest-growing black hole of past 9 billion years​