Messier 110

[Graeme]

You can't beat an astrophysics podcast! I'm a big podcast fan when I'm driving. I'll add those two to the list.

1) My understanding is that all blackholes are the same in that they are the point at which General Relativity breaks down and is no longer able to describe Mother Nature. So a singularity can only ever be a mathematical description where infinity is a volume less point in space. And we will never know more than that because no information can come out of the event horizon.
2) Black holes exist in spacetime. Time slows down near a large mass with a lot of gravity, so at infinite gravity, mathematically, time stops. You know a lot more about maths than I do so I'll leave it there!

I need to go and listen to your podcasts, thanks.

Also, 2) above. It's been bothering me! Then it occurred to me that my telescope inverts the image top to bottom and left to right. Andromeda goes round the north celestial pole 48° away, circumpolar from my latitude. M110 is always on the pole side of M32 leading by an angle of about 45°. At 22:00 when I took the photo they were close to the meridian directly overhead. So If I correct my image for what you would actually see, you get this:

M110 - EL.jpg

If you stare for long enough the star positions match this Stellarium screen dump which is also now correct for the time the photo was taken. Green is Alt Az, Blue is RA Dec, Red is the area my camera sensor sees.

Stellarium.jpg

My faint gradient is in the right place now!

Thanks for the brain stretch!

Regards

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

You can't beat an astrophysics podcast! I'm a big podcast fan when I'm driving. I'll add those two to the list. ... I need to go and listen to your podcasts, thanks.

Be warned - it is just those two episodes; I find most of the episodes to be a bit too much general-purpose content.

... because no information can come out of the event horizon.

But as the podcast (Ep.2 I think) points out Stephen Hawkins had a devilish point that it can. That, however, is getting close to my event horizon of understanding. When you hear "Green" and "yellow and Blue" pay attention (grin!)

...You know a lot more about maths than I do so I'll leave it there!

Close but no cigar. I have forgotten almost all my University maths and about 90% of my High School maths; and I had very good teachers. I can accept arguments that electrons are made out of elementary particles (those Muon-thingies), and Muons are made out of strings, and that strings are really just a mathematical concept. That is, I get that just enough to stop me hurling over-ripe zucchinis at the speaker, but I wander off thinking that learning German or Croatian would be an easier project for me.

... my telescope inverts the image top to bottom and left to right. ...

Not a problem!
Just PM everyone in this thread who complimented you on your excellent images and ask them to edit their responses to say that you are a worse astro-photographer than am I! (Since they will see that this suggestion is from me, they will ignore your PMs ...)

If you stare for long enough the star positions match this Stellarium screen dump which is also now correct for the time the photo was taken. Green is Alt Az, Blue is RA Dec, Red is the area my camera sensor sees. ... My faint gradient is in the right place now!

"Staring" (how close is that word to "starring"?) is my problem. I stare at photos od details of galaxies that (a) can't be seen with the human eye (b) let alone this human's eye and (c) we humans didn't even know (galaxies other than ours) existed 102? years ago, and get lost.

I do marvel at wielders of technology, like your self, that can take me by the hand and point and say "What you are looking at is ...".
I can't fathom the size, mass, speed of photons, nor, truth be told, the workings of the rods and cones in the retina of my right eye, but I can marvel at the concept that when I wander outside on a clear night here in Bonavista, "seeing" a star means that a rod (or cone?) in the retina of my right eye has just captured a photon that has been on is way for hundreds of thousands of years (billions in some cases), and I just happened to be at the right spot in my driveway to capture that photon in my right eye; and the earth just happened to have rotated that far, and to have revolved around our sun just so far, and ...
Likewise for my left eye.

Round about then I have to go back indoors and lie down with a cuppa for a few minutes.

Gramem, enjoy the two podcasts, and ignore anyone who jumps the gun to retract their compliments.
As a Great Man once said "Keep up the good work"!

Cheers
Chris

[Graeme]

.... but I can marvel at the concept that when I wander outside on a clear night here in Bonavista, "seeing" a star means that a rod (or cone?) in the retina of my right eye has just captured a photon that has been on is way for hundreds of thousands of years (billions in some cases), and I just happened to be at the right spot in my driveway to capture that photon in my right eye; and the earth just happened to have rotated that far, and to have revolved around our sun just so far, and ...

Absolutely! When the photons that hit my sensor last week left M110, there were no humans on Earth!

Also, since those photons move at the speed of light, for them, the journey was instant!

Regards

Graeme