M31 - THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY

The Andromeda galaxy is the closest large galaxy to Earth and is visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere. It shares its shape and composition with our galaxy The Milky Way. It lies at a distance of 2.2million light years and is 165,000 light years in diameter and contains over 200 billion stars. I was really pleased with this image as it shows nicely the dust lanes in the galaxy and also the two companion galaxies M32 and M110. The image was captured using an EOS-300D camera at prime focus of a Meade 6-inch Newtonian Reflector. It represents the sum of 10 X 60 sec exposures at ISO 800. The image was captured at Headcorn on 6th August 2005.

Click on image for full size 2000 X 1332 resolution