M31 — Andromeda Galaxy

The nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, visible to the naked eye from a dark site.

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Object type
Spiral galaxy
Constellation
Andromeda
Designation
M31 (NGC 224)
Distance
≈ 2.5 million light-years
Apparent magnitude
3.4
Apparent size
190 x 60 arcmin
Best season
Autumn / Winter (best visibility in Oct-Nov)

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, with which it is set to collide in about 4.5 billion years. It is the most distant object visible to the naked eye from Earth under good observing conditions.

This image also shows two of its elliptical satellite galaxies, M32 and M110, along with the central bulge and the dust lanes structuring its spiral arms.

A session on this target with the Seestar S30 Pro: 2h10 of 30-second sub-exposures kept after discarding the lower-quality frames, stacked and processed in Siril.

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