Since I have the LISA in IR mode I decided to try 3C 273 again. The top 3 things that amaze me about this object are the following:
1.) Proves cosmological red-shift in a manner that high-school school mathematics describes.
2.) By implication of distance via red-shift and elimination of any other phenomena, proves ultra-massive black hole powers the cores of galaxies.
[NOTE: If this object were 10 parsecs away, it would be as bright as the sun....more than 4 trillion times the luminosity!---see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_273]
3.) Amateur spectroscopy can readily record and characterize 3C 273's red-shift.
Here is the stitched Alpy600+LISA-IR spectra (Note how the O2 telluric feature at 7,605A bifurcates the shifted Ha line):
Using ISIS in profile mode, I measured the wavelengths corresponding to the peaks of Ha,OIII, Hb, Hy, and Hd intensity to derive the following table
(formatted like Etienne's) using a Hubble constant of 70 Km/s per MPC:
If I can, I'll try for 3C 279 at Mt. Pinos next month. I might also try for the 66 billion solar mass (10.4 billion LY away) black hole TON 618,
but at 15.9 magnitude, it would be a challenge with the LISA and the CDK17!
James