The Picture Gallery

The Picture Gallery

Some Radio Galaxies I have seen:

VLBA 2 cm image of the radio galaxy 0402+379, which hosts two active supermassive black holes at its center. The location of each supermassive black hole is indicated on the image by an artist's conception of an accretion disk with narrow twin jets. These results are based upon multi-epoch, multi-frequency monitoring with the VLBA. The projected separation between the two black holes is 7.3 parsecs, making this the most compact binary black hole pair yet found by more than two orders of magnitude. The combined mass of the system is estimated at ~1.5 x 10^8 solar masses, and assuming equal masses the orbital period is 150,000 years. Though gravitational radiation from this system is not yet enough to cause the orbit to decay, the discovery of this system has implications for the number of compact binary black holes that might be detectable sources of gravitational radiation.

The radio galaxy 3C129.
Hydra A
1946+708

A global VLBI image of the Compact Symmetric Object 1946+708 at 6 cm and about 1 mas resolution from the CJ2 survey (Taylor et al 1994, ApJS, 95, 345)

A VLBA image of the prototypical CSO 2352+495 at 2 cm and about 1 mas resolution (Taylor et al 1996, ApJ, 463, 95)

A VLA image of Cygnus A at 6cm and 0.5 arcsec resolution (courtesy of Chris Carilli).

Some telescopes I have visited:

The VLBA antenna at Owens Valley, and the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory at Mauna Kea.