The great Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is larger than six times that of the full Moon and lies at about a fifteen-degree angle from being edge-on. It is easily seen with the naked eye, but breathtaking in a small telescope or even binoculars. It has a bright oval nucleus and a dust lane that becomes visible in medium-sized telescopes. And the fun news... it is on a collision course with our Milky Way!Also seen in this photograph are M31's companion galaxies M110 (below M31) and M32 (above M31).
Capturing M31 can be difficult with long focal length telescopes... because it is so big! This photo, captured with an 812mm focal length scope, just barely fits a full 35mm film frame, with almost no room for error.
This is a single, unfiltered 40 minute exposure with the Meade LXD75 8" Schmidt Newtonian. The image was captured at prime focus with my 26 year old Olympus OM-1 and Fujichrome Provia 400F slide film. The scope was manually guided with an Orion 910mm f/l guidescope. Post processing done with Adobe Photoshop 7 for Mac OSX.
(c)2005 Peter Kennett
www.petesastrophotography.com