Introduction

The HET603: Deep Field is a project assignment for my Astronomy course through Swinburne Online Astronomy course.  The basic requirement is to image a field for as long as possible either in single or multiple colours then report on the content of the field.  After a few test images I decided I need to find a field with no bright stars (in fact no stars or objects brighter than magnitude 12) to avoid blooming.  This was surprisingly difficult but I did stumble across Abell 1631 which offered a good range of targets.

After some consultation with my supervisor, Dr Pamela Gay, I decided to look at the photometry of the galaxies in the image and see what I could glean.  I was encouraged to look at them as a function of their position as well so after extracting the photometry (after 10 hours worth of BVRI imaging) I plotted the results against known distances (z or redshift) and low and behold, the further the galaxy the more red they became - a poor mans redshift.

Even though I knew the theory I was blown away to actually see it in my own data.  The results were great and I was awarded a score of 29/30.

The paper is attached here (313kb PDF)

Click on the image below for a full size version of the ABELL 1631 field Tri Colour image contained in the paper (1.1mb PNG)