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M31 or NGC224 and previously referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula before it was known to be a galaxy is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way with a mere 2.5 million light years away. Like our own Milky Way, Andromeda is a spiral galaxy but it is more than twice as big with some 220,000 light years across, it is also the largest galaxy in the local group, the Milky Way is the second largest of the 44 galaxies in the group. Andromeda and the Milky Way are in a collision path and when they collide in 3.75 billion years they will probably form a huge elliptical or disk galaxy eventually. The space in between stars is so vast that very few stars will collide; however, the strong gravitational changes will create all sort of galactic weather. The two supermassive black holes at the center of them will gravitate each other in a binary back hole system and finally merge. Andromeda appears in the constellation of Andromeda with an apparent magnitude of 3.44. All the stars in any picture of Andromeda are local stars in the Milky Way, the small galaxy in the top left is M32, a satellite galaxy of Andromeda.
Taken at SGNC, McLean, IL on 20151014.
Image type: LRGB 15x180 each.
Hardware:
Orion EON 120mm with flattener
Astro-Tech 72mm
Orion Star-Shooter Auto-guider
SBIG ST-8300M with Astrodon filters
Andromeda Galaxy + H-alpha clouds
credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.
The Andromeda Galaxy, z = −0.001001, is approaching the Milky Way at about 110 Km/sec.
New Edit: January 15, 2024
Full resolution 13K px image is obtainable only upon reasonable request.
Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello Giuseppe Donatiello (Oria Amateur Astrophysical Observatory - OAAO)
(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.
This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disk. It appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a hundred small galaxies or globular clusters. This process is still ongoing.
This scientific grade image is the result of the combination of a large number of shots taken mainly with 250mm f/2.2 telephoto lenses and DSLRs.
This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
The Sculptor Galaxy also known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar galaxy and designated as 253 in the New General Catalog. It is located in the Sculptor Constellation with some 10,000 million light years distant from Earth, an angular size of 28 arcminutes and of 8 magnitude. It is the brightest galaxy in the Sculptor group of galaxies witch is next to our Local Group which contains the Milky Way, Andromeda, the Triangulum and other 41 galaxies. The Sculptor is a remarkable intermediate spiral galaxy, it is also a starburst galaxy meaning that it undergoing a period of rapid star formation.
Taken at the Sugar Grove Nature Center, McLean, IL on 20151014.
Image type: L 12x180 (the color was added from an old image, color frames of this session where unusable due to wind and clouds.)
Hardware:
Orion EON 120mm with flattener
Astro-Tech 72mm guider
Orion Star-Shooter Auto-guider
SBIG ST-8300M with Astrodon filters
Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.
This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the outer stellar halo of Andromeda (M31).
The disc appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population. The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as vestiges of dwarf galaxies incorporated progressively by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a hundred small galaxies or globular clusters. This process is still ongoing.
Stack of images collected over the last 5 years, primarily with the array of telephoto lenses made up of two 300mm f/4.5, one 110/250mm (f2.2) and two 200mm. That's about 250 hours of total exposure from an SQM 21.8 mountain sky using DSLRs at 3200/6400 ISO.
Full resolution 13K px image is obtainable only upon reasonable request.
Updated July 27, 2024
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This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
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I revisited a bunch of previous RGB data and now added about an hour of Hα data. This galaxy really needs it. All those pink areas are regions of intense star formation, where some of the most massive stars are being born. The particularly big pink blob in the upper right is known as NGC 604. It is an emission nebula in another galaxy that is so large and bright that it gets its own designation. Think of really outstanding examples like this in our own sky -- M17 or the Eta Carina Nebula. This one has both of them beat for size and luminance. It only looks small because it is 3 million light years away.
All subframes shot with a Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with Hyperstar. RGB data taken over multiple nights with an Atik 314L+ color CCD; hydrogen-alpha data taken with an Atik 414-EX with Atik 7 nm bandpass filter. Preprocessing of images in Nebulosity; registration, channel combination, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
Messier 33
Credit: Giuseppe Bianco, Giuseppe J. Donatiello, Alessandro Falesiedi, Mario Lovrencie, Tim Stone /Sezione Nazionale di Ricerca Profondo Cielo UAI
L-RGB-Ha-OIII data obtained from different telescopes from 4.5" to 17", combined with CCD and ColdCMOS cameras.
New edit: August 23, 2024
(J2000) RA: 01h 33m 50.02s Dec: +30° 39′ 36.7″
The gas-rich low-mass dwarf spiral galaxy Triangulum (Messier 33) at 3 million light-years. It is catalogued also as NGC 598 and known as Triangulum Galaxy. The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group and it is believed to be a big satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
M33 has two asymmetric faint arms, and an interstellar medium rich in gaseous filaments that extends for about 7 kpc. Although the inner disk is relatively undisturbed, the northern arm is less regular in shape than the southern one. M33, is a bulge-free galaxy with only two optically luminous dwarf galaxies believed to be its satellites: AndXXII (McConnachie et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2016) and Pisces VII (Martínez-Delgado et al. 2022; MLM Collins et al. 2024) discovered by me in 2020. The possible discovery of a third satellite called Triangulum IV was recently announced, but its nature is still uncertain (Ogami et al. 2024). However, given its mass, ΛCDM cosmological simulations predict that M33 should host a larger number of satellites, at least 10.
The neutral hydrogen (HI) disk is three times larger than the star-forming disk and is clearly warped. The outer disk has the same inclination as the inner one with respect to our line of sight but the position angle of the major axis changes by about 30 degrees compared to the inner disk and is more aligned with the M31 direction. While M33's undisturbed inner disk indicates that no major collisions between M31 and M33 or between M33 and a satellite have occurred in the past, the distortion could be the result of a flyby about 9 billion years ago. Timing assessments make this scenario unlikely and favor the hypothesis of a first fall of M33 in the region of influence of M31.
This is M33, a neighbouring spiral galaxy which is the third largest in our Local Group and only slightly further than the Andromeda Galaxy M31.
M33 is estimated to contain up to about forty billion stars.
Object Details:
Messier 33, NGC 598, UGC 1117, PGC 5818, MCG 5-4-69, CGCG 502-110.
Constellation: Triangulum.
Visual magnitude: +5.8
Apparent diameter: 62 x 36 arc-min. (about 2 Lunar Diameter).
Actual diameter: 50,000 light years (about half our Milky Way diameter).
Distance: 2,800,000 light years.
Altitude: 24° above Northern Horizon.
Image:
Exposure: 16 x 4 min, ISO 1600 (+ 6 dark, 20 bias).
Date: 2017-12-10.
Location: Field night at The Oaks, NSW, with Macarthur Astronomical Society.
Sky: semi-dark rural sky, mostly clear, some high cloud interference.
Moon: No.
Processing: Canon DPP > Deep Sky Stacker > GIMP.
Cropping: no.
Gear:
Imaging telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 120ED Super APO triplet refractor.
Focal length: 840 mm, focal ratio: f/7.
Imaging camera: Canon EOS 60D.
Guiding camera: Orion StarShoot camera.
Guiding control software: PHD2.
Guiding accuracy: 1″ rms approx
Telescope mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R.
Polar aligning: QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Field flattener: yes; filter: no.
The Local Group spiral galaxy, Messier 33 in Triangulum, with some of its star forming nebulas showing up as green-blue Oxygen III regions in its spiral arms.
This is a stack of 30 x 6-minute exposures, with the Starfield Optics Géar115 f/7 apo refractor taken as part of testing the scope, with its 1x Adjustable Field Flattener for the scope's native 805mm focal length, and with the stock 45-megapixel Canon R5 at ISO 1600. Autoguided and dithered with the MGEN3 autoguider on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No dark frames or LENR applied on this chilly night in December 2022.
Noise reduction with RC-Astro Noise XTerminator; star reduction with RC-Astro StarShrink. Galaxy details were enhanced with applications of: a masked High Pass Sharpen filter, Starizona's Galaxy Enhance action, and PhotoKemi Dark Details action. All stacking, alignment and processing in Photoshop.
The Local Group spiral galaxy, Messier 33 in Triangulum, with some of its star forming nebulas showing up as green-blue regions in its spiral arms. The field also contains some faint and much more distant 13th to 15th magnitude galaxies.
This is a stack of 20 x 4-minute exposures, with the Starfield Optics Géar115 f/7 apo refractor taken as part of testing the scope, with its 0.8x Adjustable Reducer for f/5.6 and with the stock 45-megapixel Canon R5 at ISO 800. Autoguided and dithered with the MGEN3 autoguider on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No dark frames or LENR applied on this mild night in November.
Noise reduction with RC-Astro Noise XTerminator. All stacking, alignment and processing in Photoshop.
RA center: 0h 42' 42"
DEC center: +41° 5' 56"
Andromeda Galaxy [Ultra-deep version 2020]
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
This is the sum of many images acquired over several years, mainly with telephoto lenses and small refractors.
It is also part of a larger mosaic covering the entire 400 kpc region around M31. Of course, this image does not have "aesthetic" purposes but only for study.
About ultra-deep imaging, I suggest the reading of this scientific paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2001.05746.pdf
(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.
This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the outer stellar halo of Andromeda (M31).
The disc appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population. The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as vestiges of dwarf galaxies incorporated progressively by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a hundred small galaxies or globular clusters. This process is still ongoing.
Scientific data are available on request for serious galactic archeology studies.
Triangulum (M33) superstack
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 01h 33m 50.02s Dec: +30° 39′ 36.7″
The gas-rich low-mass dwarf spiral galaxy Triangulum (Messier 33) at 3 million light-years. It is catalogued also as NGC 598 and known as Triangulum Galaxy. The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group and it is believed to be a big satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
M33 has two asymmetric faint arms, and an interstellar medium rich in gaseous filaments that extends for about 7 kpc. Although the inner disk is relatively undisturbed, the northern arm is less regular in shape than the southern one. M33, is a bulge-free galaxy with only two optically luminous dwarf galaxies believed to be its satellites: AndXXII (McConnachie et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2016) and Pisces VII (Martínez-Delgado et al., 2022) m discovered by me in 2020. However, given its mass, ΛCDM cosmological simulations predict that M33 should host a larger number of satellites, at least 10.
The neutral hydrogen (HI) disk is three times larger than the star-forming disk and is clearly warped. The outer disk has the same inclination as the inner one with respect to our line of sight but the position angle of the major axis changes by about 30 degrees compared to the inner disk and is more aligned with the M31 direction. While M33's undisturbed inner disk indicates that no major collisions between M31 and M33 or between M33 and a satellite have occurred in the past, the distortion could be the result of a flyby about 9 billion years ago. Timing assessments make this scenario unlikely and favor the hypothesis of a first fall of M33 in the region of influence of M31.
M31 widefield ultra-deep
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
This image is part of a mosaic of greater extension, obtained with captures performed with a 135mm telephoto lenses and DSLRs. The average exposure on the square degree amounts to about 4 hours.
The intent is to show the weakest and finest structures of the largest spiral of the Local Group in a galactic archeology project and search for satellites in the M31 group.
Andromeda ultra-deep image (Messier 31) no EQ
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
This scientific grade image is the result of the combination of a large number of shots taken at different times and with differrent instrumentation. Mainly with 200-300mm telephoto lenses and DSLRs but wide-field shooting with CCD and short-focus apo refractors are also included.
Being primarily interested in the stellar content of this galaxy, the images do not include narrowband captures. This has allowed us to attribute what some believe to be interstellar dust clouds to true stellar clouds and tidal structures. These structures are in perfect agreement with studies of the halo of M31.
This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
See also a different version: www.flickr.com/photos/133259498@N05/51550639713/in/datepo...
A widefield image of the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224.
M31 a large Spiral Galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. It is the nearest major Galaxy to the Milky Way, in the constellation of Andromeda. At approximately 220,000 light years across, it is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 44 other smaller Galaxies.
Photographed in the rural dark skies of the Waterberg, Limpopo, South Africa.
Gear:
William Optics Star 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO Refractor.
William Optics 50mm Finder Scope.
Celestron SkySync GPS Accessory.
Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Celestron AVX Mount.
QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Celestron StarSense.
Canon 60Da DSLR.
Astronomik Clip-In CLS Light Pollution Filter.
Tech:
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.2.
Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.
Lights/Subs:
18 x 180 sec. ISO 3200 CFA FIT (FITS).
Calibration Frames:
40 x Bias/Offset.
25 x Darks.
18 x Flats & Dark Flats.
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
Annotated Sky Chart for this image.
RA, Dec center: 10.7378305835, 41.2789774153 degrees
Orientation: 2.07712528532 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 7.65066770001 arcsec/pixel
View this image in the interactive World Wide Telescope.
&rotation=158.079159052&name=The+Andromeda+Galaxy+(M31)&reverseparity=False&scale=7.65066770001&thumb=https://farm1.staticflickr.com/599/30876176443_419305ff78_q.jpg&ra=10.7378305835&y=561&x=800&dec=41.2789774153){kind=link}
Martin
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Messier 33
Credit: DESI LIS/Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 01h 33m 50.02s Dec: +30° 39′ 36.7″
Messier 33 is a low-luminosity flocculent spiral galaxy at 3 million light-years in Triangulum. It is catalogued also as NGC 598 and known as Triangulum Galaxy. The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group and it is believed to be a big satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
M33 has two asymmetric faint arms, and an interstellar medium rich in gaseous filaments that extends for about 7 kpc. Although the inner disk is relatively undisturbed, the northern arm is less regular in shape than the southern one. M33, is a bulge-free galaxy with only two optically luminous dwarf galaxies believed to be its satellites: AndXXII (McConnachie et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2016) and Pisces VII (Martínez-Delgado et al., 2022) m discovered by me in 2020. However, given its mass, ΛCDM cosmological simulations predict that M33 should host a larger number of satellites, at least 10.
The neutral hydrogen (HI) disk is three times larger than the star-forming disk and is clearly warped. The outer disk has the same inclination as the inner one with respect to our line of sight but the position angle of the major axis changes by about 30 degrees compared to the inner disk and is more aligned with the M31 direction. While M33's undisturbed inner disk indicates that no major collisions between M31 and M33 or between M33 and a satellite have occurred in the past, the distortion could be the result of a flyby about 9 billion years ago. Timing assessments make this scenario unlikely and favor the hypothesis of a first fall of M33 in the region of influence of M31.
Hello Everyone,
For the 10th annual Kelby worldwide photowalk, professional or photography enthusiast, come and join with us on 2 hours of sunset stroll in the heart of Paris.
We will walk along the Seine river from one iconic bridge to one of most beautiful Paris bridges with the Eiffel tower watching us before sunset until dawn.
You may come with your friends or family but please note that you are responsible on your own safety and equipment.
At the end of walk we will have a moment of exchange around Bir-Hakeim area.
Date: Saturday, October 7, 2017.
Gathering time:
I will be pleased to welcome you in front of Metro Charles Michels or in front of Il Teatro bar starting from 17:00 with departure time at 17:30.
3, Place Charles Michels, 75015 Paris.
Below is the link where you need to subscribe:
www.worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/paris-grenelle-bir-hakeim/
The number of participants is limited to 50 people, so hurry up to subscribe!! :)
See you on October 7th!
Best regards,
Dwi
PS:
1. Our local group where you can share your pictures taken during the walk and before submitting your best one:
www.flickr.com/groups/paris-ladefense/
2. I will update my contact information before D-Day. Before that time, you can reach me at:
www.flickr.com/people/142409708@N08/ (click the mail symbol on the top of the page)
3. Find a photowalk around your area:
www.worldwidephotowalk.com/locations/
4. Kelby - Flickr Global group:
12 300sec. exposures, Explore Scientific 102mm f/7 refractor, ZWO ASI294MC camera, UV/IR cut filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, ASIAir controller, processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Lightroom.
NGC 6822 or Barnard's Galaxy is a dwarf irregular galaxy that is part of our Local Group. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius and at a distance of 1.6 million light years. Dwarf galaxies like this one provide interesting regions for star formation studies.
This image uses data provided by Dr. Philip Massey as distributed by the NOAO Science Archive. NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Observers: K. Olsen, C. Smith
Data for this image was obtained with the Blanco 4-m Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and is publicly available from the NOAO Science Archive.
The 4-m telescope is able to resolve individual stars. Please zoom in for an up close look!
This image is a blend of narrow band data gathered with Ha, SII and OIII filters. Each of the original frames was a 2x4 mosaic with a total of 8675x8775 pixels. The view presented here is a crop of the full frame that has been reduced to half the original resolution. Still the largest image provided here is 3200x2400 pixels and it shows lots of detail.
At first glance this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image seems to show an array of different cosmic objects, but the speckling of stars shown here actually forms a single body — a nearby dwarf galaxy known as Leo A. Its few million stars are so sparsely distributed that some distant background galaxies are visible through it. Leo A itself is at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years from Earth and a member of the Local Group of galaxies; a group that includes the Milky Way and the well-known Andromeda galaxy.
Astronomers study dwarf galaxies because they are very numerous and are simpler in structure than their giant cousins. However, their small size makes them difficult to study at great distances. As a result, the dwarf galaxies of the Local Group are of particular interest, as they are close enough to study in detail.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
Read more about this image here.
NGC 3109
Credit: DESI LIS, Giuseppe Donatiello
NGC 3109 is an irregular dwarf galaxy at 1.33 Mpc (4.3 milion light years) in Hydra. This puts it at the very outskirts of the Local Group.
Acknowledgment
Data from DECam Legacy Survey (g, r, z filters) obtained at the Blanco Telescope, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s NOIRLab.
Acknowledgments: Legacy Surveys / D. Lang (Perimeter Institute)
The Triangulum Galaxy, M33, is the most distant object visible to the naked eye from under a dark sky. This spiral galaxy lies some 3 million light years away in the constellation Triangulum. It is part of the local group, of which the Milky Way, nearby Andromeda galaxy and some other 40 or so smaller galaxies are members.
The diameter of M33 is around 60000 light years and contains about 1/10th as many stars as our own Milky Way. Red emission nebulae are clearly visible in some of the spiral arms, four of which are so large, their own NGC designation are given. These regions also have intense rates star formation. The brightest of them, NGC604, is 40 times larger and over 6000 times more luminous than the Orion Nebula. If it were in place of the Orion Nebula in our galaxy, it would be the third brightest object in the sky, outshining Venus.
Details:
Scope: TMB130SS
Camera: QSI683-wsg8
Guide Camera: Starlight Xpress Ultrastar
Mount: Mach1 GTO
L: 23x10min
RGB: 13x5min each
7.1 hrs total exposure
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
The light captured in this image, was emitted around the time that the Dinosaurs became extinct on Earth.
A wide-field mosaic of a section of Markarian's Chain, a chain of Galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Supercluster (a cluster of a several thousand Galaxies, 60 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Virgo). When viewed from Earth, the Galaxies lie along a curved line.
The Virgo Supercluster (Virgo SC) or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is a mass concentration of Galaxies containing the Virgo Cluster and Local Group, which in turn contains the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. At least 100 Galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years). The Virgo SC is one of about 10 million superclusters in the Observable Universe and is in the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, a Galaxy Filament.
A few quotes:
"There is an odd mannequin shape that is presented by the distribution of galaxies. This work has been done mainly by Margaret Geller with her collaborator John Huchra at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. It's a little like soap bubbles in a bathtub or dishwashing detergent. The galaxies are on the surfaces of the bubbles. The insides of the bubbles seem to have no galaxies in them at all." - Carl Sagan - Cosmos - The Edge of Forever (S01E10).
The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth." - Carl Sagan - Cosmos - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (S01E01).
About this image:
Imaged in LRGB over several sessions in July 2019 from the Southern Hemisphere.
Image Acquisition & Plate Solving:
SGP Mosaic and Framing Wizard.
PlaneWave PlateSolve 2 via SGP.
Integration time:
18 hours.
Processing:
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
Center RA, Dec: 187.055, 12.888
Center RA, hms: 12h 28m 13.184s
Center Dec, dms: +12° 53' 17.123"
Size: 3.26 x 2.5 deg
Radius: 2.054 deg
Pixel scale: 7.33 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 88.3 degrees E of N
View an Annotated Sky Chart of this image.
View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.
&creditsUrl=&ra=187.536744&dec=12.032357&x=1214.0&y=370.9&rotation=91.70&thumb=http://nova.astrometry.net/image/7121763){kind=link}
Flickr Explore:
Also see:
Photo usage and Copyright:
Medium-resolution photograph licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For High-resolution Royalty Free (RF) licensing, contact me via my site: Contact.
Martin
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Andromeda Galaxy
Crediti: ZTF/Dss2/Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 00 h 42 m 44.3 s dicembre: + 41° 16 ' 9 ′′ (core)
L ' Andromeda Galaxy, o Messier 31 (M31) e NGC 224, è una galassia a spirale circa a 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 milioni di anni luce). È il più grande menber del Gruppo Locale di galassie, che contiene anche la Via Lattea, la Galassia del Triangolo e altre 88 galassie più piccole.
L ' Andromeda Galaxy, Z = − 0.001001, si avvicina alla Via Lattea a circa 110 Km / sec
The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy
Credit: DESI LIS, Giuseppe Donatiello
The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy (also Sculptor System) is a satellite of the Milky Way at about 90 kpc. It was discovered in 1937 by Harlow Shapley.
Acknowledgments
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) data are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (“CC BY 4.0”, Summary, Full Legal Code). Users are free to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, transform and build upon the DESI data available through this website for any purpose, including commercially.
This image used data obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI construction and operations is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies.
See also: flic.kr/p/YojEH5
Andromeda (M31) ultra-deep image 300h
DAGAS-2 survey
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
Andromeda Galaxy - M31
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello (Sezione Nazionale di Ricerca Profondo cielo - Unione Astrofili Italiani/UAI)
Here about 300 hours of integration of unfiltered images taken until winter 2024, exclusively with telephoto lenses and DSLRs.
This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the external halo of Andromeda (M31).
The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as debries of dwarf galaxies progressively incoporated by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a few hundred small galaxies or globular clusters.
This process is still ongoing.
For a description of the structures in the halo, please consult this figure: flic.kr/p/2iyoMJ2 and this flic.kr/p/2oBr9aA
Scientific data are available on request for serious galactic archeology studies.
I think I can't do more with a process that is honest and reproducible by anyone without any artifice: just calibration and stack. I can declare the DAGAS-2 deep survey of the M31 and M33 haloes completed. No sign of recently mythological beasts.
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This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
Full resolution image is obtainable only upon reasonable request.
This frames the entire Small Magellanic Cloud, a member of the Local Group of galaxies and a companion of our Milky Way Galaxy.
While not as richly endowed with nebulas and clusters as its nearby companion, the Large Magellanic Cloud, the SMC is still a wonderful region to explore. However, the two most notable objects in this scene do not belong to the SMC, but are closer objects that just happen to lie near it in the sky in the constellation of Tucana. At right is the spectacular globular cluster NGC 104 or 47 Tucanae, perhaps the finest globular in the sky. At top is what is dubbed as the "Mini 47 Tuc," or NGC 362, as through a telescope it looks like a smaller version of 47 Tuc, with a similar compressed core. Above and below 47 Tuc, respectively, is the small globular NGC 121 and large open cluster Kron 3.
This portrait was taken with the aid of a dual-narrowband filter to emphasize the red and cyan nebulas embedded in the main body of the SMC but also outlying such as at left.
The brightest and largest cyan nebula in the SMC is NGC 362, with the large star cluster NGC 395 to the left but here obscured by a cyan nebula. The smaller star cluster NGC 330 lies below NGC 346. The reddish nebula below and left of the main region of the SMC is NGC 456. Farther out is the odd NGC 602 with a blue appendage to it. In between is a round nebula not labeled on charts I had. Indeed the various atlases I consulted differed in the identities of the objects. At the lower southern end of the SMC is a confusion of small nebulas: NGC 294, 267, 261, 241, 248.
The field is 7.5 by 5º.
This is a blend of: a stack of 8 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an IDAS NBZ narrowband fiter (that passes just H-alpha and Oxygen III wavelengths) and a stack of 12 x 5 minute unfiltered exposures at ISO 800, all with the Sharpstar 61mm EDPH III refractor at f/4.4 and the filter-modified (by AstroGear.net) Canon R, on the Astro-Physics AP400 mount autoguided with the MGEN3 autoguider.
Taken March 5, 2024 from the Mirrabook Cottage near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, during a successful two-week observing run down under.
This is the Large Magellanic Cloud, the main Local Group member and a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, some 160,000 light years away, It is visible only from the southern hemisphere. Nowhere else in the sky do we see such a profuse collection of star-forming nebulas as here in this frame the width typical of binocular fields, about 7.5° by 5º.
The LMC is a dwarf irregular galaxy though with structures that resemble a barred spiral galaxy. Tidal disruptions caused by its passage near our Galaxy are sparking an intense level of star formation and star death – some of the nebulas are bubbles blown out by exploding or dying stars.
The main region of nebulosity is the massive Tarantula Nebula complex (NGC 2070) at left, with its twisted and tortured structure. The other main area is the NGC 1763 complex at upper right. At upper left are the nebulas NGC 2020 and NGC 1955, among many others. At lower right is the NGC 1748 complex. At lower left is NGC 2018.
However, the region is so rich it is hard to identify which object is which, especially as most atlases don't agree on the labels. Even amateur photos such as this reveal patches of nebulosity that are not plotted as such on star charts.
While many of the nebulas are red or pink from hydrogen alpha emission, many are cyan from predominant oxygen III emission.
This is a blend of images taken through a dual-band nebula filter and without any filter. This is a stack of 12 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an IDAS NBZ dual-band (OIII and H-a) filter that adds most of the nebulosity, blended with a stack of 20 x 5-minute exposures at ISO 800 with no filter for the main "natural light" background content.
The Canon EOS R camera I used was modified by AstroGear.net to be more sensitive to H-a light. It was on the little Sharpstar 61mm EDPH III refractor with its Reducer for f/4.4, and on the Astro-Physics AP400 mount autoguided with the Lacerta MGEN III stand-alone auto-guider. Inter-frame dithering eliminated hot pixels on this warm night. No dark frames were employed.
Taken March 4, 2024 on a perfect autumn night at the Mirrabook Cottage near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia and down the hill, literally, from the Siding Spring Observatory. While the camera was shooting I enjoyed touring the southern Milky Way with binoculars. It was stargazing heaven!
The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or
NGC 224 (as seen from the Southern Hemisphere).
M31 is a large Spiral Galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. It is the nearest major Galaxy to the Milky Way, in the constellation of Andromeda. At approximately 220,000 light-years across, it is the largest Galaxy of the Local Group, which also contains the Milky Way Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 44 other smaller Galaxies.
About this image:
In the Southern Hemisphere (at my latitude), M31 is only visible low on the horizon in the early morning hours just before sunrise. The weather conditions were challenging, as it was very cold, windy and then dew and frost followed. This sequence of stacked images were photographed in the middle of Winter in the rural dark skies of the Freestate, South Africa.
Gear:
GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Reflector Telescope.
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector.
Astronomik CLS Light Pollution Filter.
Celestron SkySync GPS Accessory.
Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Celestron AVX Mount.
QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Celestron StarSense.
Canon 60Da DSLR.
Dew-Not Heater.
Tech:
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.1.
Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.
Lights/Subs: 25 x 120 sec. ISO 3200 CFA FIT Files.
Lights/Subs: 15 x 60 sec. ISO 6400 CFA FIT Files.
Calibration Frames:
50 x Bias (at each ISO)
30 x Darks (at each ISO)
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry info:
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1221463#annotated
RA, Dec center: 10.4852224357, 41.3730582693 degrees
Orientation: 1.23816775908 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 5.84085388796 arcsec/pixel
Martin
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The Triangulum Spiral is a member of our local group and is paired prominently with M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Both lie at a distance of about 2.6 million light years. From the vantage point of our neighbors in M33, the Andromeda Galaxy would span some 17 degrees in the night sky.
This image was captured under high desert skies near Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA with a telescope of 12" aperture at f/8 and an electrically-cooled CCD camera. Total exposure was 5.5 hours (HaLRGB).
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), or Nubecula Minor, is a dwarf irregular satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
SMC has a diameter of about 7,000 light-years and has a total mass of approximately 7 billion solar masses.
The average apparent diameter is about 4.2° and thus covers an area of about 70 times the Moon's. The SMC forms a pair with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC),
Its distance is 203,700 light-years (62.44kpc).
Composite data mosaic.
A single 5 second exposure the Milky Way as seen from the Fish River Canyon in Namibia, Southern Hemisphere, August 2014.
One of my first Astophotography images that rekindled my lifelong interest in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
I got my first small Telescope soon after, and the rest is history. View my Astrophotography Gallery, with a collection new and old images.
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” -
Carl Sagan.
Martin
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Leo II dwarf galaxy
Credit: DESI LIS, Giuseppe Donatiello
RA,Dec = 168.3627, 22.1539
Leo II is a dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxy of the Milky Way at about 690,000 light-years away in Leo. It was discovered in 1950 by Robert George Harrington and Albert George Wilson, from the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories in California. Leo II consists largely of metal-poor older stars.
Acknowledgments
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) data are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (“CC BY 4.0”, Summary, Full Legal Code). Users are free to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, transform and build upon the DESI data available through this website for any purpose, including commercially.
This image used data obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI construction and operations is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies.
Andromeda Galaxy (M31) ultra-deep v.2
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
This scientific grade image is the result of the combination of a large number of shots taken at different times and with differrent instrumentation. Mainly with 200-300mm telephoto lenses and DSLRs but wide-field shooting with CCD and short-focus apo refractors are also included.
Being primarily interested in the stellar content of this galaxy, the images do not include narrowband captures. This has allowed us to attribute what some believe to be interstellar dust clouds to true stellar clouds and tidal structures. These structures are in perfect agreement with studies of the halo of M31.
Please, see also this version: flic.kr/p/2oBr9aA
This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
One of my fist short exposure learning/test Astro-images, photographed close to the city.
The Lagoon Nebula (M8, Messier 8 or NGC 6523) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4000 - 6000 light years from Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy, and is classified as an emission nebula.
Emission nebulae are glowing clouds of interstellar gas which have been excited by some nearby energy source, usually a very hot star. The red light seen in this picture is glowing hydrogen captured in the Hydrogen-Alpha (Hα) Infrared wavelength of light at 656nm.
Photographed rather close to the "light polluted" suburbs of the West Rand and North Rand of Johannesburg (Gauteng Province, South Africa). Light Pollution Map .
Astrometry info::
RA, Dec center: 271.058268626, -24.3623113276 degrees
Orientation: 0.715439826321 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 4.18683362403 arcsec/pixel
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/774837#annotated
Gear:
GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Telescope (Astrograph).
Celestron Advanced VX Equatorial Mount.
Orion UltraBlock Narrowband Light Pollution Filter.
Canon 60Da DSLR (sensitive to IR light at 656.28 nm).
Processed in PixInsight.
Polar Aligned, but Unguided.
Stacked 20 sec. exposures (Lights/Subs).
Calibration Frames: Darks and Bias frames (no Flats).
Martin
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The monstrous beauty of Andromeda and its stellar halo
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.
This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the outer stellar halo of Andromeda (M31).
The disc appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population. The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as vestiges of dwarf galaxies incorporated progressively by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a hundred small galaxies or globular clusters. This process is still ongoing.
Stack of images collected over the last 5 years, primarily with the array of telephoto lenses made up of two 300mm f/4.5, one 110/250mm (f2.2) and two 200mm. That's about 250 hours of total exposure from an SQM 21.8 mountain sky using DSLRs at 3200/6400 ISO.
Full resolution image (100MB) unlabeled: flic.kr/p/2nV2hnf
For details on the nomenclature, please see here:
The information and annotations in the image are of scientific utility because they identify the subject and place it in a specific moment. They also indicate the subject of interest. The absence of such information makes the images useless.
The very bright Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus or the Doradus Nebula) is an H II region in the very dense Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Tarantula Nebula is the most active starburst region known in the Local Group of Galaxies.
About this image:
This wide field image consists of 12 x 2 minute exposures at ISO 3200. Photographed in the rural skies of the Freestate, South Africa. The LMC was still lower on the horizon at my Latitude than is recommended for Astrophotography (due to the additional Atmospheric Seeing and Light Pollution), but I couldn't resit taking a few photos through the trees. This beautiful Deep Sky Object is definitely worth revisiting and shooting longer Narrowband exposures in the Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) and Oxygen III (OIII) wavelengths of light when it is at a better position in the sky.
About the Star Colors:
You will notice that star colors differ from red, orange and yellow, to blue. This is an indication of the temperature of the star's Nuclear Fusion process. This is determined by the size and mass of the star, and the stage of its life cycle. In short, the blue stars are hotter, and the red ones are cooler.
Gear:
GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Reflector Telescope.
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector.
Astronomik CLS Light Pollution Filter.
Celestron SkySync GPS Accessory.
Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Celestron AVX Mount.
QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Celestron StarSense.
Canon 60Da DSLR.
Dew-Not Heater.
Tech:
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.1.
Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.
Lights/Subs: 12 x 120 sec. ISO 3200 CFA FIT Files.
Calibration Frames:
30 x Bias (from my Bias Library)
20 x Darks (from my Dark Library)
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker (for a change).
Linear workflow in PixInsight.
Finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1223689#annotated
RA, Dec center: 84.8585965726, -69.4721382099 degrees
Orientation: 1.19904510687 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 7.39988133636 arcsec/pixel
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Martin
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Regulus and the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
RA 10h 08m 22.311s DEC +11° 58′ 01.95″
Regulus, α Leonis (α Leo), is the brightest star in Leo and one of the brightest in the night sky, located about 79 light-years from the Sun.
RA: 10h 08m 27.4s DEC +12° 18′ 27″
Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) in Leo at 820,000 light-years. It is part of the Local Group of galaxies as it is a satellite of our Milky Way (properly Galaxy). It was discovered in 1950 by Albert George Wilson on photographic plates from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS). The proximity of Regulus (Alfa Leo) and the low light make it very difficult to observe.
Leo I dSph is still the most distant satellite of the Milky Way, practically at the edge of its halo. Color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of Leo I reveal several striking features.
There is a well-defined red giant (RGB) branch that is very blue and has a flatter slope than all other dSphs and galactic globular clusters.
Leo I has no obvious horizontal branch; however, it shows a strong clustering of red giants. Leo I's CMD shows ~50 anomalous Cepheid candidates. There are asymptotic giant branch stars above the tip of the RGB, including 15 carbon stars. This is consistent with the presence of a young population of approximately 3 Gyr.
These results suggest that it is the youngest spheroidal dwarf galaxy in the Milky Way [MG Lee et al. (1993) AJ v.106, p.1420]. However, only recently have some ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxies with hints of recent star formation been discovered. This implies that in smaller, fainter systems, star formation has not completely stopped with reionization [Michelle L M Collins et al. 2024]
At the center of Leo I, a dwarf about 100,000 times less massive than the Milky Way, astronomers have discovered a black hole almost as large as the one at the center of the Milky Way. The discovery challenges theories about the formation of supermassive black holes.
Leo I dSph should not be confused with the nearly homonymous Leo-I galactic group of which M96 is part.
With Tair-3S 300mm f/4.5 telephoto array on April 5, 2024 from suburban sky.
The ignored galaxy, M110. Messier 110 is very frequently photographed, but more often than not simply because of its huge neighbour - M31, The Andromeda Galaxy, which can be partially seen in the top left of this photo.
M110 is a dwarf elliptical satellite galaxy, similar to the Milky Way’s Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This companion galaxy is bound by the gravity of M31 and is a member of the Local Group which comprises of galaxies located closest to our Milky Way and is located around 2.69 million light years away.
Elliptical galaxies have a smooth and featureless structure which can make them much less visually interesting compared to spiral (especially grand spiral) galaxies. That doesn’t mean it’s not cool! This is still a galaxy containing around 10 BILLION stars. Just sit and think about that for a second.
This photo, as always, was captured from my garden telescope in England, UK ✨
LRGB - 180s x 514 (26.2)
EQ6R Pro
Skywatcher 200P Modified (F/4.75)
Antlia LRGB 36mm filters
The great galaxy in Andromeda, also known as Messier 31, is the largest member of our local group of galaxies which also includes our own Milky Way galaxy and M33, another large spiral galaxy in Triangulum, and about 30 other small galaxies. It is the farthest object easily visible with the unaided eye at 2.5 million light-years. It is even visible in moderately light polluted urban areas, especially with the aid of binoculars. The Andromeda Galaxy is one of the few galaxies that is actually approaching us. It is closing in on the Milky Way at about 300,000 mph which means that in approximately 2.5 billion years our galaxy will likely merge with M31 (boy I'd love to see the night sky when that occurs!)
See it in context in my wide-field Milky Way shot.
Two smaller galaxies are visible near M31, one just below and the other to the upper-right, they are small satellite galaxies that are gravitationally bound to M31 and are easily visible in small backyard telescopes.
Here's the technical details about the shot:
Mount: CGEM
Camera: Nikon D300 (borrowed)
Lens: Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR @ 200mm f/2.8 (also borrowed, fast!!!)
Exposures: 415x30s unguided, ISO 3200
Post: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop CS4
[OIII] cloud near Andromeda (M31)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
A few people, knowing of my ultra-deep images of M31, are asking me if I also captured the [OIII] cloud recently announced by Marcel Drechsler et al. with a letter published in ASS RN and some opinions about it.
Yes, for some years already but not recognized as an ionized oxygen cloud because I don't do narrowband captures (except for some in H-alpha) because I'm primarily interested in the stellar component of the system: I'm looking for stellar streams and dwarf galaxies, not nebulae.
The excess green/cyan is present in almost all my color images (see link below) and often desaturated as well. I have always thought that this excess was attributable to the scattering of cirrus clouds of galactic dust and, in any case, I was not equipped to take shots in [OIII]. So my congratulations to the discoverers on their new find of extremely faint clouds, albeit announced in a non-peer-reviewed publication.
- What do you think about it?
That something is projected onto another object does not imply correlation and would not be the first case. The [OIII] emission is typical of planetary nebulae, therefore of stellar evolution, therefore I am inclined towards a local cloud.
The very sharp appearance of the streaks is another indication of proximity since small instruments do not achieve that degree of resolution on sources at the distance of M31. Nevertheless in my images it is seen, together with other very weak structures in the Andromeda halo (which however I do not see in the images published by the authors).
If radial velocity measurements validated a distance of about 750 kpc, compatible with that of M31, a truly intriguing scenario would open up and would be a very remarkable discovery, otherwise a mere astrophotographic curiosity.
Original Version: flic.kr/p/2h6c3Dm
Related images:
The Triangulum Galaxy is a Spiral Galaxy approximately 3 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33, M33 or NGC 598.
The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which includes the Milky Way Galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy and about 44 other smaller Galaxies. It is one of the most distant deep sky objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.
About this image:
This image consists of 20 x 3 minute exposures at ISO 6400. In the Southern Hemisphere (at my latitude), M31 is only visible low on the horizon in the early morning hours just before sunrise. It was photographed in the middle of Winter in the rural dark skies of the Karoo (Northern Cape, South Africa).
Gear:
GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Reflector Telescope.
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector.
Astronomik CLS Light Pollution Filter.
Orion StarShoot Autoguider.
Aurora Flatfield Panel.
Celestron AVX Mount.
Celestron StarSense.
Canon 60Da DSLR.
Guiding in Open PHD 2.6.1.
Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.
Lights/Subs: 20 x 180 sec. ISO 6400 CFA FIT Files.
Calibration Frames:
50 x Bias
30 x Darks
20 x Flats
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/1190244#annotated
RA, Dec center: 23.4077292224, 30.6364815572 degrees
Orientation: 1.20125396767 deg E of N
Pixel scale: 5.60868960996 arcsec/pixel
Martin
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M31 virial radius (small version)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
Edit Feb. 19, 2024
It may seem incredible, but in the direction of Andromeda there is a wall of stars, gas and dust!
With the naked eye we see just the stars that outline the constellations while with very long exposures, integrating hours and hours patiently captured over the course of a few years, we record the radiation of very weak sources to the point of transforming the sky background from black to light.
The circle roughly corresponds to the region of influence of M31/M33, up to a projected virial radius of about 300 Kpc.
About 200h with 58mm f/2, 85mm f/2 mosaic
SQN=21.8
This is a showpiece of the southern skies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a member of the Local Group, and a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, one rich in star forming nebulas and clusters. The LMC is cross between a dwarf irregular galaxy and a barred spiral. The nebulas along its bar and arms show as regions of magenta and cyan, from hydrogen and oxygen emission.
The bright cyan Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070, is at left, with the NGC 2014/NGC 1935 area above it.
The field is 7.5 by 5º but still does not include all the parts of the LMC.
This is a stack of 15 x 4-minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm EDPH III refractor at f/4.4 and the filter-modified (by AstroGear.net) Canon R at ISO 800, on the Astro-Physics AP400 mount autoguided with the MGEN3 autoguider. No filter was employed in the light path.
Taken March 3, 2024 from the Mirrabook Cottage near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, on the first night of a successul two-week observing run down under.
Andromeda Galaxy - M31 (nomenclature structures in the outer halo of the galaxy)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello
(revision 2023)
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This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/
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This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the external halo of Andromeda (M31).
The disc appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population. The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as vestiges of dwarf galaxies progressively incorporated by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a few hundred small galaxies or globular clusters.
This process is still ongoing.
According to Ferguson et al. (2002), the names attributed to various substructures, unknown to most, are reported in the negative image with disc color inset.
However, the figure shows some unpublished structures. In particular, the structures I have called "S Spur" and "S Arch" seem not reported so far. Equally interesting are the thin "shadows" that present a trend compatible with streams (Black Ribbon 1, 2 and 3, "Phantom Shade". These structures have very low contrast and can be formed both by dust and by populations of cold stars coming from destroyed dwarf galaxies. They are all to be verified.
More about: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/342019/fulltext/202181...
The outskirts of galaxies contain vital clues to their formation history. It is in these regions that new material continues to arrive as part of their ongoing assembly, and it is also in these regions that material was deposited during violent interactions in the galaxy's past. Furthermore, the long dynamical timescales ensure that debris from accreted material takes a long time to be washed away by the merger process. This means that many formation legacies can be detected as coherent structures in space.
Andromeda is the nearest large spiral galaxy and the only other significant one in the Local Group. In many ways, Andromeda is the Milky Way, having very similar total masses, they share a common origin and, probably, the same ultimate fate when they merge. However, there are significant differences between them. M31 is slightly brighter than the Milky Way and has a higher rotation rate and a bulge with a higher velocity dispersion. M31 has a globular cluster system with ~500 members, about 3 times more than the Milky Way.
Andromeda's disk is also much more extended, but is now forming stars at a slower rate than the Galaxy. There are indications that the Milky Way has undergone an exceptionally low amount of mergers and has an unusually low specific angular momentum, while M31 appears to be a much more normal galaxy in these respects.
Andromeda has one compact elliptical galaxy (M32), three dwarf elliptical galaxies (NGC 205, NGC 147, NGC 185) among its entourage of 39 satellites, as well as no dwarf irregular (dIrr) star-forming galaxies within 200 kpc. The Milky Way has no ellipticals but two dIrr (Magellanic Clouds). However, it is perhaps in their supposed halo populations that the differences between the two galaxies are most curious and interesting.
This study of mine, based on ultra-deep imaging, highlights faint structures in the extended halo of M31, NGC 147 3 NGC 185. Some structures appear here for the first time and on the right I propose a possible interpretation. Note how some structures pass for some dwarf satellite galaxies suggesting a possible connection.
This is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and member of the Local Group of galaxies, framed in portrait orientartion to include all of the Cloud and some of the fainter outlying glow and surrounding stars of Mensa and Dorado.
The bright knot at left on the eastern side of the LMC is the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070, and its surrounding complex of other nebulas. The large nebula on the right or western end of the LMC is the NGC 1763 complex.
The LMC is officially classed as a barred spiral galaxy, and some of that form is apparent here, though it is rather asymetric, with an obvious arm sweeping up to the north and rich in nebulas, but only a weak arm visible below to the south.
The bright star at top is Beta Doradus, the second brightest star in Dorado the Swordfish or Goldfish. The other stars above the LMC belong to Dorado. The stars below the LMC belong to Mensa, named for Table Mountain in South Africa.
This is a stack of 13 x 2-minute exposures, with the RF135mm lens at f/2.2 and the Canon Ra at ISO 800, on the MSM Nomad tracker. The lens had an URTH Night broadband night filter on it to improve contrast somewhat. Taken on a partly cloudy night March 6, 2024 from Mirrabook Cottage, near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. Some frames were through thin clouds and I left those in the stack to add the natural star glows to bring out the brighter stars and their colours.
Visible/IR composite wide range image taken with Tair-3Sand addition of NeoWISE 3.4 (W1) and 4.6 (W2) μm data.
Triangulum (Messier 33)
(J2000) RA: 01h 33m 50.02s Dec: +30° 39′ 36.7″
Messier 33 is a low-luminosity flocculent spiral galaxy at 3 million light-years in Triangulum. It is catalogued also as NGC 598 and known as Triangulum Galaxy. The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group and it is believed to be a big satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
M33 has two asymmetric faint arms, and an interstellar medium rich in gaseous filaments that extends for about 7 kpc. Although the inner disk is relatively undisturbed, the northern arm is less regular in shape than the southern one. M33, is a bulge-free galaxy with only two optically luminous dwarf galaxies believed to be its satellites: AndXXII (McConnachie et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2016) and Pisces VII (Martínez-Delgado et al., 2022) m discovered by me in 2020. However, given its mass, ΛCDM cosmological simulations predict that M33 should host a larger number of satellites, at least 10.
The neutral hydrogen (HI) disk is three times larger than the star-forming disk and is clearly warped. The outer disk has the same inclination as the inner one with respect to our line of sight but the position angle of the major axis changes by about 30 degrees compared to the inner disk and is more aligned with the M31 direction. While M33's undisturbed inner disk indicates that no major collisions between M31 and M33 or between M33 and a satellite have occurred in the past, the distortion could be the result of a flyby about 9 billion years ago. Timing assessments make this scenario unlikely and favor the hypothesis of a first fall of M33 in the region of influence of M31.
My latest attempt at The Andromeda Galaxy. 2.5 Million light years away..
51x60sec
48x90sec
Canon XSi
Orion 80ED Telescope
Atlas EQ-G
Phoenix Dwarf (ESO 245-7)
Credit: DESI LIS (DES1/DECaLS DR9, DR10), Giuseppe Donatiello
(RA/DEC: 27.7796, -44.4460 deg)
Initially believed by the discoverers to be a distant globular cluster [H.E. Schuster & R.M. West, A&A, Vol. 49, p. 129-131 (1976)], was later ascertained to be an irregular dwarf galaxy (dIrr) 440 ± 20 kpc (1.44 M light-years) distant.
Phoenix exhibits two distinct stellar populations. The older one is more present in the peripheral areas in a north-south direction, while the younger one dominates the central region, in particular in an east-west oriented bar structure. The rate of star formation appears to have been somewhat constant over time. These results, together with the morphological study, suggest the existence of an old population poor in metals with spheroidal symmetry around a younger internal component [D. Martinez-Delgado et al. (1999)].
New edited on Dec. 25, 2022
Acknowledgments
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) data are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (“CC BY 4.0”, Summary, Full Legal Code). Users are free to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, transform and build upon the DESI data available through this website for any purpose, including commercially.
This image used data obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI construction and operations is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. The DESI collaboration is honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies.