3C 273

3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified.

It is the optically brightest quasar in our sky (m ~12.9), and one of the closest with a redshift, z, of 0.158. A luminosity distance of D_L = 749 megaparsecs (2.4 Gly) may be calculated from z. It is also one of the most luminous quasars known, with an absolute magnitude of −26.7, meaning that if it was only as distant as Pollux (~10 parsecs) it would appear nearly as bright in the sky as the Sun. Since the sun's absolute magnitude is 4.83, it means that the quasar is over 4 trillion times brighter than the sun. Its mass has been measured to be 886 ± 187 million solar masses through broad emission-line reverberation mapping.