nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I finally had a night, between the clouds, to get enough Ha to bring out some of the red regions in M31 - there are a lot more to reveal.....I just haven't figured out the best way to do it. Save that for a rainy day. Tonight, tomorrow and maybe Thursday night looks pretty good for imaging!

This is the same M31 that I put up last week......but I didn't like the way it was framed so I changed that...plus I added the Ha to the LRGB data.

(Download)

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Looking good! I do see some red bleeding on some brighter stars.

Still, nothing but smoky haze here.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

There is a lot more Ha (red) in the dust lanes .....I was not very patient creating a Ha mask before adding the Luminosity image - a step that I will revisit when I get a chance. The data is much better than the processor on this one - which is me.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Beautiful work Ed.
Craig

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

Really great job, it's beautiful, how far away is that galaxy??

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

That galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away. And it is coming right at us at over 402,000 KM/hr (or if your prefer ~ 241,000 mph). The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter. Andromeda is 220,000 light years across. About 1.7 times the mass of the Milky Way. And you only have about 4.5 billion years to get ready for the collision! Get your tin foil hats ready.

Another thing to think about is that all the distant galaxies have a red shift, meaning that they are moving away from us. Andromeda has a blue shift.

By the way, galaxies are quite the cannibals! There are images of other galaxies eating their neighbors for breakfast.

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

Thanks for the info, always like to know how far out they are. I'm currently reading Lawrence Krauss's book, 'Fifth Essence', a great insight into the cosmos and the search for dark matter/energy, lots of particle physics as well. In Atmospheric Chemistry we don't have many interesting photos to offer!