#Astro, #DeepSky

The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way, located approximately 2.5 million light-years away. It is home to about one trillion stars, making it one of the largest galaxies in the Local Group, which includes the Milky Way. In about 4.5 billion years, Andromeda is expected to collide and merge with the Milky Way, forming a new, larger galaxy.

On the first of November 2024, the weather was clear, and it was a new moon, so I decided to have a spontaneous backyard astrophotography session, with the Andromeda Galaxy as my target. It was my first attempt at photographing the spiral galaxy at such a high focal length. Initially, finding and framing the galaxy was challenging, and since the star tracker alignment wasn’t perfect, I had to use shorter exposure times. In the end, I stacked around 500 images, achieving a total exposure time of about 25 minutes, and I’m quite pleased with the results, given the spontaneous setup and imperfect tracking.

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