The Flickr Andromedagalaxy Image Generatr

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello

(J2000) RA: 00h 42m 44.3s Dec: +41° 16′ 9″ (core)
The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) and NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately at 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years). It is the largest menber of the Local Group of galaxies, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies.

This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disk. It appears quite regular and there is an abundant presence of young stars, gases and dusts. The bulge is dominated by an older population.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a hundred small galaxies or globular clusters. This process is still ongoing.


This scientific grade image is the result of the combination of a large number of shots taken mainly with 250mm f/2.2 telephoto lenses and DSLRs.


This image is distributed as CC0 but for its use please refer to what is indicated in the info here: www.flickr.com/people/133259498@N05/

Andromeda Galaxy above Jerome County, Idaho

This is a wide-angle view of the distribution of known satellite galaxies orbiting the large Andromeda galaxy (M31), located 2.5 million light-years away. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was used to study the entire population of 36 mini-galaxies circled in yellow. Andromeda is the bright spindle-shaped object at the image center. All the dwarf galaxies seem to be confined to a plane, all orbiting in the same direction. The wide view is from ground-based photography. Hubble's optical stability, clarity, and efficiency made this ambitious survey possible. Hubble close up snapshots of four dwarf galaxies are on image right. The most prominent dwarf galaxy is M32 (NGC 221), a compact ellipsoidal galaxy that might be the remnant core of a larger galaxy that collided with Andromeda a few billion years ago.

Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Savino (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI), A. Fujii DSS2; CC BY 4.0

There are three (3) galaxies visible in this shot of the night sky from out in the High Desert of California.
Most prominent is the dusty band of our very own Milkyway galaxy (opposite from the more popular galactic core) that is center/right. Next is the Andromada galaxy, 2.5 million light years distant in the center left. And lastly, about 45° up and to the left from Andromeda is Messier 33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, a little more than 2.7 million light years distant.

Think about that.

The light that hit my eye and my camera sensor left those objects 2.5 to 2.7 million years ago which closely approximates the timeframe for the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch here on earth. For a certain sense of scale here I will note that the earliest Homo sapiens first appeared on earth only about 300,000 years ago.

Also, FYI, Andromeda and our Milkyway are on a collision course with one another, but not to worry; they are not expected to merge for approximately another 4 and a half billion years (give or take), at which point humans will most probably have long gone extinct.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope panorama (or photomosaic, created by the Hubble Team) of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31.

Original caption: This the largest photomosaic ever assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble snapshots. The galaxy is so close to us, that in angular size it is six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon, and can be seen with the unaided eye. For Hubble’s pinpoint view, that’s a lot of celestial real estate to cover. This stunning, colorful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. That’s still a fraction of Andromeda’s population. And the stars are spread across about 2.5 billion pixels. The detailed look at the resolved stars will help astronomers piece together the galaxy’s past history that includes mergers with smaller satellite galaxies. [Image description: The Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy, spreads across the image. It is tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight so that it appears very oval. The borders of the galaxy are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images against a black background. The outer edges of the galaxy are blue, while the inner two-thirds is yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty filamentary clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o’clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. Hubble’s sharp vision distinguishes about 200 million stars within the image.]

This is largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble overlapping snapshots that were challenging to stitch together. The galaxy is so close to us, that in angular size it is six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon, and can be seen with the unaided eye. For Hubble’s pinpoint view, that’s a lot of celestial real estate to cover. This stunning, colorful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. That’s still a fraction of Andromeda’s population. And the stars are spread across about 2.5 billion pixels. The detailed look at the resolved stars will help astronomers piece together the galaxy’s past history that includes mergers with smaller satellite galaxies.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Benjamin F. Williams (UWashington), Zhuo Chen (UWashington), L. Clifton Johnson (Northwestern); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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Andromeda Galaxy a.k.a. Messier 31
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Andromeda, the largest galaxy in the so-called Local Group of Galaxies to which our galaxy also belongs, is 2.5 million light-years away and can be seen (even with the naked eye) in the constellation Andromeda. As general information, Andromeda is about 1.5 times larger than the Milky Way, with a diameter of 220,000 light-years (compared to the Milky Way which is 120-140,000 light-years in diameter) and contains more than 2 times as many stars. Although the first mention of this celestial object dates from 960, the first to give a more detailed description was the German astronomer Simon Marius, in the 1600s.
It should also be mentioned that Andromeda and the Milky Way are approaching with about 100 miles per second, experts estimate that in about 3-4 billion years the 2 galaxies will collide and thus form a new giant galaxy.
The attached image only shows part of Andromeda because the equipment I used was prepared for another target.
Equipment and settings:
Mount: Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Telescope: Skywatcher 150PDS newtonian telescope
Camera: ASI 533MC Pro
Filter: Baader UV/IR cut
Integration: 52min
26 light frames x 2 min + calibration frames
Stacking with DSS. Edit in Pixinsight si Lightroom.
Location: my Bortle 6+ backyard

Andromeda Galaxy - M31 ultra-deep image
Deep survey of the halo of M31
Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello (Sezione Nazionale di Ricerca Profondo cielo - Unione Astrofili Italiani/UAI)

Here about 300 hours of integration of unfiltered images taken until summer 2023, exclusively with telephoto lenses and DSLRs.

This image offers a good overview of the main structures on the disc and the external halo of Andromeda (M31).
The external halo presents various irregularities and thickenings that we can consider as debries of dwarf galaxies progressively incoporated by the greater galaxy, as foreseen by the growth models.
M31 is thought to have assimilated a few hundred small galaxies or globular clusters.
This process is still ongoing.

For a description of the structures in the halo, please consult this figure: flic.kr/p/2iyoMJ2

Scientific data are available on request for serious galactic archeology studies.


The outskirts of galaxies contain vital clues to their formation history. It is in these regions that new material continues to arrive as part of their ongoing assembly, and it is also in these regions that material was deposited during violent interactions in the galaxy's past. Furthermore, the long dynamical timescales ensure that debris from accreted material takes a long time to be washed away by the merger process. This means that many formation legacies can be detected as coherent structures in space.

Andromeda is the nearest large spiral galaxy and the only other significant one in the Local Group. In many ways, Andromeda is the Milky Way, having very similar total masses, they share a common origin and, probably, the same ultimate fate when they merge. However, there are significant differences between them. M31 is slightly brighter than the Milky Way and has a higher rotation rate and a bulge with a higher velocity dispersion. M31 has a globular cluster system with ~500 members, about 3 times more than the Milky Way.

Andromeda's disk is also much more extended, but is now forming stars at a slower rate than the Galaxy. There are indications that the Milky Way has undergone an exceptionally low amount of mergers and has an unusually low specific angular momentum, while M31 appears to be a much more normal galaxy in these respects.

Andromeda has one compact elliptical galaxy (M32), three dwarf elliptical galaxies (NGC 205, NGC 147, NGC 185) among its entourage of 39 satellites, as well as no dwarf irregular (dIrr) star-forming galaxies within 200 kpc. The Milky Way has no ellipticals but two dIrr (Magellanic Clouds). However, it is perhaps in their supposed halo populations that the differences between the two galaxies are most curious and interesting.

This study of mine, based on ultra-deep imaging, highlights faint structures in the extended halo of M31, NGC 147 3 NGC 185. Some structures appear here for the first time and on the right I propose a possible interpretation. Note how some structures pass for some dwarf satellite galaxies suggesting a possible connection.

M31 NGC 224. 200,000 Lightyears Wide 2.5 Million light years from Earth with satellite galaxy M32

Revisiting M31. I'm still exploring what the ASI 071 camera will produce.

T: APM 107 refractor with a Riccardi reducer
C: ASI 071MC Pro
M: SW EQ8

90 x 90s RGB

I spent three nights in a row taking Astro pictures in #bavarianforest. This is my best shot from the #andromedagalaxy so far. About 2.5h of total exposure time with a 500mm f8 mirror lens from 1980. I somehow had a hard time finding Polaris for tracking and the galaxy itself this time. Guess I need more practice to speed things up. It took me almost 6h from start to the final pic.

This is a large stellar field designated as NGC 206, it is located in one of the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy. Also marked in this view are a few globular clusters found in the same field of view. I used information from Robert Gendler Astrophotography (www.robgendlerastropics.com/) to help identify some of the globular clusters in my image.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Right ascension: 00h 40m 31.3s
Declination: +40° 44′ 21″
Apparent dimensions (V): 4.2′ (arcmin)
Constellation: Andromeda

Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 135 Minutes using 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: November 3 and 7, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).This is a large stellar field designated as NGC 206, it is located in one of the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy. Also marked in this view are a few globular clusters found in the same field of view. I used information from Robert Gendler Astrophotography (www.robgendlerastropics.com/) to help identify some of the globular clusters in my image.

Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Right ascension: 00h 40m 31.3s
Declination: +40° 44′ 21″
Apparent dimensions (V): 4.2′ (arcmin)
Constellation: Andromeda

Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 135 Minutes using 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: November 3 and 7, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) This stunning galaxy, the closest major galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy, is the farthest object humans can see with the naked eye at 2.5 million light years away. Its location is in the constellation of Andromeda and has two small companion dwarf galaxies. Taken from Red Wing, Minnesota

This the largest photomosaic ever assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble snapshots. The galaxy is so close to us, that in angular size it is six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon, and can be seen with the unaided eye. For Hubble’s pinpoint view, that’s a lot of celestial real estate to cover. This stunning, colorful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. That’s still a fraction of Andromeda’s population. And the stars are spread across about 2.5 billion pixels. The detailed look at the resolved stars will help astronomers piece together the galaxy’s past history that includes mergers with smaller satellite galaxies.

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[Image description: The Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy, spreads across the image. It is tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight so that it appears very oval. The borders of the galaxy are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images against a black background. The outer edges of the galaxy are blue, while the inner two-thirds is yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty filamentary clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o’clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. Hubble’s sharp vision distinguishes about 200 million stars within the image.]

Credits: NASA, ESA, B. Williams (University of Washington); CC BY 4.0

Andromeda Galaxy taken with a SeeStar s50. 174 10sec exposures stacked with Siril and processed with Siril and Photoshop Express.

The closest galaxy to us at 2.5 million light years. the most distant thing most of us humans can see with the unaided eye in the northern hemisphere, so no wonder we can capture so much detail with all those one trillion stars! Andromeda has two satellite galaxies, M32 (smaller fuzzy) and M110 (larger fuzzy).


Technical details:
telescope: Ceravolo300 at f/4.9
Camera: Apogee U16M
Filters: Astrodon LRGB
1.5 hours