Abell 2065
is a
large, dense and distant (some1 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.
Optics:
NoName Newton 192/800
+GPU c.c. Camera:
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.