- NGC 3079 is a close to edge-on barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major. Its distance is about 50 Million light-years. According to SIMBAD it is a Seyfert II galaxy, ie it exhibits nuclear activity. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷 36 Sek.Jan 27, 2026 09:44
- About 10 arcmin north of NGC3079 (at about 1 o'clock see also annotated image revision B on astrobin) is the famous Twin Quasar QSO 0957+561, aka PGC 2518326, the first gravitationally lensed QSO discovered in 1979.
- QSO 0957+561 is located at a redshift of about 1.41, i.e. 8.7 billion light-years away - quite a deep peek from my backyard …!
- Lensed QSOs are of increasing interest as they provide an independent method to measure the Hubble's constant and thus may eventually help explaining the tension between local measurements (based on Cepheids etc) and thus derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background.
