Our closest Galaxy neighbor is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. It is a mere 2.5 million light years away from the Milky Way. At a dark enough site it is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye. It is slowly drifting towards us, expected to collide with the Milky Way in 4-5 billion years, forming a new giant elliptical galaxy. Not to worry, our own Sun will eliminate most life on Earth well before the collision.
The Andromeda Galaxy has been a difficult object for me to process. I have plenty of data, but struggle balancing the fine details in the galaxy with the nebulosity surrounding it. The image below was taken in October 2019 vs the latest image in December 2023. I am sure I will have many more attempts in the future.
This image was taken using an ASI533mm monochrome astro camera attached to a Canon 70-200mm lens at 200mm. It is an RGB image with Ha enhancements to bring out the star forming regions in the Galaxy. These are the red areas seen in some of the spirals. The final image uses a little over 8 hours of exposure time. I also took a couple hours of Luminance data but when processing the final image I preferred the integration without. I will try some more processing on the Luminance data to see if I can bring out more detail in the Galaxy and reduce the star size a little. Editing was done using Pixinsight. M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
- R: 2.1 hours split between 10s, 60s, and 90s exposures
- G: 2 hours split between 10s, 60s, and 90s exposures
- B: 2.2 hours split between 10s, 60s, and 90s exposures
- Ha: 1.8 hours 300s exposures
