NYC Comets
Andromeda and Triangulum
Scanned from film. Taken from Westport, Connecticut on a fall evening in the late 1980s, an exposure of ~20 seconds with a 35mm SLR and ISO 400 film. The picture shows the constellations Andromeda and Triangulum. The photo also shows the two largest galaxies in the vicinity of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Pinwheel or Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
The Andromeda Galaxy, the bright, fuzzy patch at top center, was first reported in AD 953 by the Persian astronomer al-Sufi, who called it a “little cloud”. We know today, though, that it is considerably larger than our own galaxy; it can be seen with the naked eye from reasonably dark suburban skies. The Milky Way and M31 are approaching each other in a cosmic dance in which they will pass close to each other in about 2 billion years, and eventually merge about 5 billion years from now into one large, elliptical galaxy.
The Pinwheel Galaxy was discovered telescopically in 1764 by the French comet hunter Charles Messier (M33 means it's the 33st object in Messier's catalogue of objects that could be mistaken for comets). It is smaller than the Milky Way and usually requires binoculars or a telescope to observe (though keen-eyed observers in very dark-sky locations may be able to see it with the naked eye).
The bright star at the upper right is Alpheratz, or Alpha Andromedae (the brightest star in Andromeda; stars within a constellation are labeled sequentially by Greek letter according to brightness, with Alpha being the brightest); it also marks the upper left corner of the Great Square of Pegasus.
From Alpheratz, the stars of Andromeda stretch to the lower left in two strands. The lower strand ends at Almaak (Gamma Andromedae), which reveals itself as a beautiful double star in a small telescope. Between M31 and Almaak is Upsilon Andromedae, a binary star around whose primary star four planets with masses ranging from 0.6 to 4 Jupiters have been discovered. At the bottom of the photo is the constellation Triangulum; the Pinwheel Galaxy is the faint patch marked with a note.
Andromeda and Triangulum
Scanned from film. Taken from Westport, Connecticut on a fall evening in the late 1980s, an exposure of ~20 seconds with a 35mm SLR and ISO 400 film. The picture shows the constellations Andromeda and Triangulum. The photo also shows the two largest galaxies in the vicinity of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Pinwheel or Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
The Andromeda Galaxy, the bright, fuzzy patch at top center, was first reported in AD 953 by the Persian astronomer al-Sufi, who called it a “little cloud”. We know today, though, that it is considerably larger than our own galaxy; it can be seen with the naked eye from reasonably dark suburban skies. The Milky Way and M31 are approaching each other in a cosmic dance in which they will pass close to each other in about 2 billion years, and eventually merge about 5 billion years from now into one large, elliptical galaxy.
The Pinwheel Galaxy was discovered telescopically in 1764 by the French comet hunter Charles Messier (M33 means it's the 33st object in Messier's catalogue of objects that could be mistaken for comets). It is smaller than the Milky Way and usually requires binoculars or a telescope to observe (though keen-eyed observers in very dark-sky locations may be able to see it with the naked eye).
The bright star at the upper right is Alpheratz, or Alpha Andromedae (the brightest star in Andromeda; stars within a constellation are labeled sequentially by Greek letter according to brightness, with Alpha being the brightest); it also marks the upper left corner of the Great Square of Pegasus.
From Alpheratz, the stars of Andromeda stretch to the lower left in two strands. The lower strand ends at Almaak (Gamma Andromedae), which reveals itself as a beautiful double star in a small telescope. Between M31 and Almaak is Upsilon Andromedae, a binary star around whose primary star four planets with masses ranging from 0.6 to 4 Jupiters have been discovered. At the bottom of the photo is the constellation Triangulum; the Pinwheel Galaxy is the faint patch marked with a note.