Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

IR Line?

  • HannaViolet by HannaViolet

    What is the long IR line that cuts diagonally between the radio signals?

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    Welcome to RGZ, HannaViolet 😃

    It's what we call a diffraction spike, a kind of #artifact produced by light (or IR in this case) bouncing off the vanes which support a mirror in the WISE telescope. The same thing happens for SDSS, and you can see the star in this zoomed out view (the spike is in a different direction because the telescopes were pointing differently):

    enter image description here

    Interestingly, the host of the #double may be SDSS J074149.28+225301.4, which has a photometric redshift (zph) of 0.533±0.121. If so, this may be a very rare kind of object called a #green #SDRAGN 😮

    enter image description here

    Hope this helps, and happy hunting! 😃

    Posted