What is the difference between the left and right pictures of a Quasar Core?

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So I was looking some stuff up on Quasars on Wikipedia and noticed this picture.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/2003-03-b-web.jpg

It says that this is a Quasar Core. What exactly is the difference between the left and right pictures here? Did they block out the light from the center to show the material around it?
 
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Drakkith said:
So I was looking some stuff up on Quasars on Wikipedia and noticed this picture.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/2003-03-b-web.jpg

It says that this is a Quasar Core. What exactly is the difference between the left and right pictures here? Did they block out the light from the center to show the material around it?

What is a Quasar "core" anyway? It's a very young AGN, so isn't the Quaser already the core, and imaging beyond the intense radiation strikes me as impossible. Maybe I'm missing the point... is the Quasar the entire young galaxy, and the AGN is the 'core'?
 
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Drakkith said:
It says that this is a Quasar Core. What exactly is the difference between the left and right pictures here? Did they block out the light from the center to show the material around it?
Yes, the right image is using a 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronagraph" ' to block out the central light---allowing the surrounding region to be seen and better resolved.
 
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Misericorde said:
What is a Quasar "core" anyway? It's a very young AGN, so isn't the Quaser already the core, and imaging beyond the intense radiation strikes me as impossible. Maybe I'm missing the point... is the Quasar the entire young galaxy, and the AGN is the 'core'?

I think the term quasar encompasses the whole accretion disk and everything inside it, while "core" would probably just be the black hole itself.

zhermes said:
Yes, the right image is using a 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronagraph" ' to block out the central light---allowing the surrounding region to be seen and better resolved.

Ah, ok. Thanks!
 
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Drakkith said:
I think the term quasar encompasses the whole accretion disk and everything inside it, while "core" would probably just be the black hole itself.



Ah, ok. Thanks!

That makes sense, thanks Drakkith.
 

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