Andromeda Galaxy M31 and companions

Brightest and nearest of all spiral galaxies. Over 300 billion stars located at 2.2 million light years. The entire galaxy is about 160' x 40' with a diameter of 180,000 light years. Shown is the area near the core.

Note Galaxy M32/NGC221 (8.5' x 6.5' and magnitude 8.1) in lower right corner and M110/NGC205 (19.5' x 11.5' and magnitude 8.1) in upper left of image. Note also that if you hold your mouse over this image, you will see an image of the same galaxy taken November 26, 2005 with the Canon EOS20D and a 200 mm f2.8 lens. This shows a wider field view of this area.

Images taken with TEC-140 Telescope mounted on Losmandy G11 mount. Camera used was a Canon EOS20D used at prime focus.

Five 2.5 minute exposures dark compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and Digitaly Developed in ImagesPlus 2.01. (Mouse over image consists of 10-3 min exposures and was processed with IP 2.75 beta 1.)