Andromeda Galaxy Collaboration

About This Photograph

This fabulously detailed photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy is the result of a collaboration with Rob Gendler. With his expert processing skills, Rob combined several sets of data, including his and my ground-based color photographs along with data from the 8.2-meter Subaru telescope, the Mayall 4-meter telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Digitized Sky Survey.

At a distance of "only" about 2.5 million light-years, the Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest major galaxy to our own. It has roughly the same mass as the Milky Way, around the equivalent of one trillion times the mass of our sun. As deep-sky objects go, it is a big, beautiful sight easily visible to the naked eye from dark locations. It is a good example of a spiral-type galaxy, with regions of dense dust and gas adjacent to reddish star forming regions and clusters of hot, bright new blue stars, all forming spiral arms that wind out from the bright core.

Copyright © 2020 Robert Gendler, Russell Croman, Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Legacy Archive, NOAO

Full credits for the data and processing used to create this composite:

• 8.2 Meter Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), HSC Collaboration / Kavli IPMU
• Hydrogen Alpha data courtesy of Local Group Survey Mayall 4M Telescope, Kitt Peak National Observatory (NOAO)
• Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA)
• Photograph assembly and processing: Robert Gendler and Russell Croman

More details on Rob's web site.