M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy (Paul Kent)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: Great Nebula in Andromeda · M 31 · M 32 · NGC 221 · NGC 224

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M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

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M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy (M 31) captured from our observatory in Spain. Around 6 hours of data captured through colour filters used to create this image.

Andromeda itself is our nearest large galaxy, located around 2.5 million light years from our own Milky Way. It is easy seen with the naked eye from a moderately dark location, and spans around 3 degrees, or 6 full moon widths, though only the core is bright enough to see.

The galaxy contains around 1000 billion stars, thus its quite probable that Andromeda is physically larger than our own galaxy, even though we are thought to be very similar. Blue spiral arms indicate recent star formation. These young stars are very hot and emit lots of UV and blue light. Further evidence can be spotted by zooming in and noticing small red/pink patches of ionised Hydrogen gas, characteristic of both star forming regions and supernovae. Whilst on the topic of stars, the core is the complete opposite. In the cores of spiral galaxies, star formation is almost non-existent and the only stars that have long enough life spans are cooler, low mass stars like our sun. These are more yellow in colour, hence the colour of the core. Dark dust lanes permeate the spiral arms, just like in our own milky way. Just below centre and in the upper right are two smaller galaxies that orbit Andromeda. The milky way also has satellite galaxies....the largest are the Magellanic Clouds visible from the southern hemisphere.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1878453
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

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M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

M 31, The Andromeda Galaxy

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