Andromeda Galaxy

"Andromeda Galaxy" 

Judy Royal Glenn Photography

A member of our Athens Photography Guild (APG) asked if anyone would be interested in coming to his house for a star party. He has an observatory at his house with several telescopes to observe the night sky.

I went Wednesday night to his house and was able to photograph the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). I was amazed seeing all the Lord had made!

This photo is of the Andromeda Galaxy also called M31 or Messier 31. I was so excited I was able to photograph a galaxy. One can see this galaxy with the naked eye.

It is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and contains an estimated trillion stars. It is much larger than our own Milky Way and is 2.5 million light-years away.. If you can’t imagine how many stars this is, the Milky Way contains 200-400 billion stars.

The dark bands visible to the top left are bands of dust. The dust blocks the light from the stars behind them.

My camera was piggy backed to his telescope and the scope matched the movement of the earth’s rotation so during the long exposure the stars did not streak.

Setting: Nikon D800 + Nikon AF-S 80-400mm, 30 seconds, f/5.6, 12800 ISO, 320mm