The Great Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and Neighbors
Characteristics:
Magnitude: 4.5
Size: 2.1 degrees
Distance: 2.2 million light years
RA: 0h 43m 08s
Dec: 41 degrees 19' 54"
Description:
The Great Andromeda Galaxy is the most prominent member of our local
group, which includes the large and small Magellanic Clouds, M33
(Pinwheel Galaxy), and the neighboring elliptical galaxies M110 and
M32, seen above at 5 o'clock and 10 o'clock (just off center),
respectively. At a dark site, M31 is a naked eye object, although
for city and
suburban dwellers it's almost impossible to view without a telescope.
The
central portion glows slightly yellow as a result of older stars,
whereas
the periphery has a characteristic bluish hue due to a predominance of
younger stars. Please click here for a
higher
resolution image.
Photographic Details:
Date: November 15, 2003
Scope: Takahashi Sky 90 at f4.5 with field flattener/focal
reducer, piggybacked on LX90 (which is mounted on a Meade Superwedge).
Autoguider: STV with e-finder.
Camera: Canon 10D.
Filter: IDAS LPS.
Exposures: 12 x 5' at ISO 800.
Conditions: Temperature 29 degrees F; average transparency;
average seeing; occassional wind (3 shots out of
15 had slightly oblong stars and were not used).
Post-processing: Raw
conversion, adaptive dark frame calibration, alignment, adaptive
addition done in ImagesPlus; Levels,
curves, and layer mask adjustments in
Photoshop; final smoothing done in Pleiades SGBNR software. The
use
of adaptive addition for combining in ImagesPlus was superior to other
combination
methods for this image.
Please
note: Graphics on this website may not be reproduced without
author permission.
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