Celestial
Andromeda Galaxy - M31
Artist - Brian Morganti
Messier 31 is a large spiral Galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda and was once known as the "Great Andromeda Nebula". This galaxy is a gigantic collection of more than 300 billion stars, and possibly up to a trillion stars and is located 2.5 million light-years from Earth. It is actually the most distant deep space object that can be seen with the human eye!
M31 is heading towards our Milky Way Galaxy and may collide with it and possibly merge into a gigantic elliptical galaxy in about 3 billion years. M31 is bright enough to easily be seen with the unaided eye from a dark-sky observing site, but as with any other deep-sky object, its visibility can be drastically reduced by light pollution.
Companion dwarf elliptical galaxies M32 (just above M31)) and M110 (lower right of image frame). Total exposure time was 8 hours, 40 minutes with a modified Canon 6DH and a 4" APO refractor telescope.
