Friday, August 28, 2009

Andromeda, Sweet Andromeda....

I finally finished processing an image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M-31) which I took last Sunday night. This image was created from several 1-minute exposures taken at around 2:00 a.m. on Monday, August 24.

The galaxy is located at a distance of 2.5 million lightyears away from us. (ONE lightyear is about 6 TRILLION miles!!!) All of the stars in this image are foreground stars...meaning that they are all in our own Milky Way Galaxy. We are looking through these stars to Andromeda, far, far away.

Also, the area of sky that the image covers is no bigger than the end of your pinky finger, held out at arm's length!!!! If you take a moment and consider how many stars are visible in that tiny area of sky, then imagine how many more stars there are in the rest of the sky!!!!!! Whoa!!!!!!





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