Imaging telescopes or lenses: Apertura 60EDR
Imaging cameras: ZWO ASI183MM-Pro
Mounts: iOptron iEQ45 Pro
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Astromania 50 mm guidescope
Guiding cameras: QHYCCD QHY5-III 178M
Software: Photoshop CC · StarTools · Deep Sky Stacker (DSS)
Filters: ZWO new B · ZWO new G · ZWO new R · ZWO new L
Accessory: Apertura Field Flattener · ZWO EFW Mini
Dates:July 17, 2020
Frames:
ZWO new B: 6x300" (gain: 100.00) -5C bin 2x2
ZWO new G: 6x300" (gain: 100.00) -5C bin 2x2
ZWO new L: 6x300" (gain: 100.00) -5C bin 2x2
ZWO new R: 6x300" (gain: 100.00) -5C bin 2x2
Integration: 2.0 hours
Darks: ~25
Flats: ~25
Avg. Moon age: 26.28 days
Avg. Moon phase: 11.46%
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4.00
Astrometry.net job: 4016305
RA center: 0h 42' 20"
DEC center: +41° 19' 10"
Pixel scale: 2.696 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: 117.971 degrees
Field radius: 1.216 degrees
Resolution: 2729x1759
Locations: Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society dark site, Champaign, IL, United States
Data source: Traveller
M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. This is the nearest large (Milky Way-size) galaxy to our own. It's on a collision course for us and will get here in about a billion years. During the ensuing collision virtually no stars will actually hit each other, but some stars will be ejected and the rest will settle into a new, merged, galaxy. Clouds of gas in the two galaxies will collide and produce a burst of new star formation. Eventually the central supermassive black holes of the two galaxies will merge, possibly becoming briefly active due to accreting material and producing relativistic jets. The entire process will take several hundred million years. M31 is already warped, I think (?) due to interaction with its satellite galaxies M110 (below center) and M32 (above left).
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