Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31.

smr

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One of my favourite Deep Sky objects, the Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31. The only galaxy visible with the naked eye under dark enough skies.

This is a spiral galaxy much like how our own galaxy is purported to look like if we could zoom out and see ourselves from a bird's eye view.

Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away from Earth and is on a collision course with our own galaxy, the Milky Way, travelling to us through Space and time at 140,000 kilometers per second. The collision will occur 4.5 billion years from now. The result will be a giant elliptical galaxy.

The spiral arms are being distorted by gravitational interactions with the two visible companion galaxies, M32 and M110.

5 hours worth of 3, 4 and 5 minute photos stacked together. Acquired with; Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan Belt Mod, Canon 80D, William Optics Zenithstar 73 Telescope, ASI 120MM Mini guiding camera, 50mm Starwave Guidecam, PHD2 and APT.

Processed in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr
 
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Just cant get my head around how we can take a long exposure of something travelling at 140,000 kilometers per second.

You would think that would render in impossible but obviously not...
 
Wow now thats a image , I better book my holiday asap :D
 
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I'm curious, various science programmes say that the Universe is expanding, so how come we are going to bump into Andromeda, surely it should be getting further away, or is it yet another drawback to Brexit :LOL:
 
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Wow now thats a image , I better book my holiday asap :D

Thanks very much Allen. The darker the sky the better for astronomy.

I'm curious, various science programmes say that the Universe is expanding, so how come we are going to bump into Andromeda, surely it should be getting further away, or is it yet another drawback to Brexit :LOL:

Whilst the Universe may be expanding the the subject matter contained within has it's own trajectories I suppose is the answer to that, without which we wouldn't exist.
 
Just cant get my head around how we can take a long exposure of something travelling at 140,000 kilometers per second.

You would think that would render in impossible but obviously not...

I thought about this too, I suppose it just underlines how far away Andromeda is, if you imagine a car miles and miles away from you on the horizon, coming towards you. There would be a certain amount of time that it looks the same size. That's how I understand it anyway!
 
I thought about this too, I suppose it just underlines how far away Andromeda is, if you imagine a car miles and miles away from you on the horizon, coming towards you. There would be a certain amount of time that it looks the same size. That's how I understand it anyway!
The car will close the distance much quicker (even if only travelling at a snails pace).
One light year is a distance too vast to really comprehend (approximately 9.500,000,000,000 km) Andromeda's approach speed will take over 20 thousand years to cover each one. I suspect the rotation of Andromeda would make more of a difference to it's appearance than it's approach, but even so a 100 year exposure should suffer to much from subject movement :D

Fantastic shot BTW, your skills have made the most of some rather fancy hardware and we've all gained from your hard work. Thanks for sharing it.
 
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Excellent work, thanks for sharing (y)

Is it fair to assume that our galaxy is moving a the same kind of speed?
 
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Is it fair to assume that our galaxy is moving a the same kind of speed?
It depends on the frame of reference you pick. From the point of view of Andromeda, we're the ones moving not them (and the speed would be the same)
from the point of view of a photon we're moving at the speed of light!
 
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My hat goes off to you. Immense skill and patience has obviously gone into making this amazing and beautiful image.
Are there some smaller (apparent) galaxies in there too?
Just thinking this would be good to view as a large print.
BTW your website link is coming back 404 not found for me.
 
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My hat goes off to you. Immense skill and patience has obviously gone into making this amazing and beautiful image.
Are there some smaller (apparent) galaxies in there too?
Just thinking this would be good to view as a large print.
BTW your website link is coming back 404 not found for me.

Thank you very much Patrick. There at least two other galaxies yes... M32 and M110.

I'll get around to sorting my website out one day.

Very impressive, super dedication to capture and process!

Thank you very much Alan.


I really don't have enough adjectives....

Thank you very much!
 
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