Mouse Over Image / Mover el ratón sobre la imagen
 
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy  
Andromeda

Spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, also known as M31 and often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula		  
 
The Andromeda Galaxy is located approximately 2.5 million light-years away. It is also known as NGC 224. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, but not the closest galaxy overall. M31 is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which consists of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies.

The 2006 observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that M31 contains one trillion (1012) stars, more than the number of stars in our own galaxy, which is estimated to be c. 200-400 billion. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are expected to collide in perhaps 4.5 billion years.

The Andromeda Galaxy has satellite galaxies, consisting of 14 known dwarf galaxies. The best known and most readily observed satellite galaxies are M32 and M110.

The galaxy is inclined an estimated 77° relative to the Earth.

At an apparent magnitude of 3.4, the Andromeda Galaxy is notable for being one of the brightest Messier objects, making it easily visible to the naked eye even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. Although it appears more than six times as wide as the full Moon when photographed through a larger telescope, only the brighter central region is visible to the naked eye or when viewed using a binoculars or a small telescope.


Nova M31 2009-08b (formerly 2009-08d):
(Mouse over image). It was confirmed the nova nature of the possible nova M31 2009-08d, discovered by Rafael Ferrando on UT 2009 Aug 15.0950 (discovery image at http://www.pla-de-arguines.com/NOVA-M31D.jpg ). A single, filterless image of 20-s exposure time taken on UT 2009 Aug 18.1430 with the ACAM imager/spectrograph on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (La Palma) reveals the object at coordinates RA=00h44m09.91s, Dec=+41d48m51.0s (J2000), as reported.		  
 
Technical details:  
Location:  
 Valdemorillo - Spain
Date:  
 01/12/2010 (dd/mm/yyyy)
Conditions:  
 Normal
Temperature:  
 10ºCºC
Humidity:  
 low
 
Telescope:  
 GSO Reflector 200mm f/4
Reducer/corrector:  
 Baader MPCC
Filter:  
 IDAS LPS 2"
Mount:  
 Orion Atlas EQG
Camera:  
 Canon 350D no filter
Exposure:  
 21x60s + 19x180s + 7x300s @800iso
Guiding tube:  
 B&C 60/350 f7
Guiding camera:  
 Celestron NexImage
Guiding software:  
 PHD Guiding
 
Procesing:  
 64bit HDR Composition from three calibrated and registrated images (60s, 180s and 300s), created with PixInsight 1.6  
Notes:  
  
     

 
All Contents Copyright by Jaime Fernández and Copyright of their respectives owners. Text mainly extracted from Wikipedia.
All Jaime Fernandez propietary contents freely available for non-profit purposes,
otherwise I beg you for a fair contribution to NGO Medicos Sin Fronteras proportional to the profit obtained.

Este sitio web usa cookies para su funcionamiento. No utiliza cookies publicitarias ni de personalización.
Al navegar por esta web aceptas el uso de estas cookies y que tus datos de navegación sean anónimamente recopilados para conteo estadístico y control de acceso
(IP origen, fecha y hora, página visitada y términos de búsqueda usados).