Cygnus-A

© Albert van Duin

During the holidays I was wondering what would be visible at the coordinates of the Cygnus-A radio source, which interferes with our radio observations but is also often used as a calibration source. This radio source was discovered in 1939 by Grote Reber.

So I acquired 24 images with 10 minutes integration time each with my 400mm astrograph from our back yard in Beilen and found out that het host galaxy of the radio source PGC63932 is easily visible in optical wavelengths. Some red H-Alpha emission is also visible in this dense star field.

The total integration time was 4 hours with the detector cooled to -30°C, and the complete image and all imaging details can be found here: https://www.astrobin.com/glnaxt/E/