Astrodvorek Kamenne Zehrovice

Abell 2065 - Corona Borealis cluster

Abell 2065 

 

Abell 2065 is a large, dense and distant (some 1 billion light-years) galaxy cluster in the constellation Corona Borealis, near Alphecca (alpha CrB).  For a smaller scope it is rather difficult target, only the central giant elliptical galaxies of ~16m are larger then 30", all others (more than 400) are much smaller and fainter. Still we can see here a lot of galaxies and so it is one of my favorite pictures, moreover photographed during summer solstice (no astronomical night). 
There is also a number of quasars far in the background; the most distant (redshift z=2.85 , the light travel time 11.4 billion light years) and relatively bright one is marked by an arrow in the top left-hand corner.

This is latest version of the picture, after new data processing in 2025.

   

 

Back to Galaxies

 

Optics:       NoName Newton 192/800
                   +GPU c.c.

C
amera:    Atik One 6
Filters:        LRGB Baader

Mount:      SW AZEQ-5
Guider:       Lacerta MGEN

Exposure:  37 x5 min. (L)
                      
12x5 min. (R, G, B each), bin 2x2
Software:   PixInsight, Photoshop
23.-26.6. 2019 ,  ..8/2025

I couldn't resist trying to count the galaxies in the image - according to Wikipedia, there are about 400 of them in the whole cluster.
It was not so easy and after the umpteenth failed attempt, I have furthermore tagged the galaxies using PixInsight (with PGC catalog).
And finally, I came to a conclusion - I can say that we can see here over 250  (billion LY distant) galaxies !
And since I was still playing around with converting photos into short videos for Instagram (mostly simple zoom),
you can try zooming in on this cluster on the right at a speed of several hundred million light years per second.

         A2065_pgc