BL Lacertae


This prototype of a subclass of quasi-stellar objects seems like an ordinary faint star lost in the rich background of the Milky Way about 5°10' W of 6 Lacertae (see negative image and finder chart below). In fact we see just the active nucleus of very distant galaxy and its brightness varies between 12.4 and 17.2 magnitude during one day! The negative image below indicates the approximate brightness of some of the field stars.

The above image was taken on August 26, 2001 from Harrowsmith, Ontario. Cookbook 245 LDC CCD camera was used on Ultima 8 f6.3 telescope autoguided with Cookbook 211 LDC camera on a piggybacked 500mm f8 telephoto lens. Ten white exposures (60 sec. each) were combined with AIP4WIN.

North is to the left.


Map created in Guide 7.0 - 7°45' x 7°45'. North is up.


Lacerta Page


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© Jan Wisniewski