Abell 1033, "Starship Enterprise"- Galaxy Cluster
Abell 1033 is the name of a galaxy cluster in the constellation "Leo Minor" (LMi), which is located at a distance of around 1.7 billion light-years.
Its redshift is z= 0.122, which corresponds to an escape velocity of v= 36,600km/s - so the galaxy cluster is moving away from us at 12% of the
speed of light.
Like pretty much every galaxy cluster, Abell 1033 is surrounded by hot gas. The special feature is, that the several million degree hot gas
filaments have the shape of the starship "Enterprise" from Startrek TNG - including the saucer-section and the drive-section! :))
In reality, ACO 1033 is the unfinished product of a collision between two galaxy clusters. This causes turbulence and shock waves in the hot gas.
Two jets have also been observed ejecting particles into space at nearly the speed of light. Observations have shown that the gas in the area of the
"saucer section" is hotter than elsewhere, which indicates further stimulation. Radio emission has been detected over a distance of half a million
light-years.
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Finding Abell 1033 is quite easy because it is located only 22 arcminutes west of the 5.5mag bright star "34 LMi".
Of course, the spaceship was not visible in my 20" f/3 telescope ;)
However, I was able to find 11 galaxies at a magnification of 380x. As the cluster was already quite low in the sky at the time of observation, it was a little
bit more difficult than usual to see the galaxies.
