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Photographer:

eddy12

Location of Photo:

Demanova/Slovakia

Date/Time of photo:

Date: Aug. 14 - Oct. 31, 2022

Equipment:

Skywatcher Stargate 450p dobsonian, alt-az mount, 18" f4.2 (reduced to f3 with Starizona Nexus), ZWo ASI 183MM mono-camera, live stack in sharpcap)

Description:

Gravitation lensing in galaxy cluster Abell 2218 in Draco constellation. ----- Here is my first attempt to image, probably the most pronounced lensing galaxy cluster there is, from my backyard. The conditions were sub-optimal with sub-urban skies and mediocre seeing. The first image shows a cluster and its apparent environment, where the objects are distant galaxies for the most part, rather than stars of our Galaxy. The latter one is a closer look at about 250 objects forming Abell2218 cluster. In this one, the brightest parts of arcs can are barely visible. Those have a red shift z of 1-2. I collected the signal coming from the distance of over 2 billion ly, red shift (z=0.7). From the alike gravitation arcs lensing, the mass of cluster can be deducted thanks to the predictions made by general relativity based models. Total integration time of 10.6h (Lum 161 x 180s, R, G: 20 x 180s, B: 10 x 180s ) ---------- Imaging technique using sharpcap at 4s subs, live stacked 180s worth of integration as fits files, stacked and post-processed in DSS, Siril, GIMP, Affinity photo (noiseXeterminator plugin).