With no hope of acquiring any data for the foreseeable future, I have been digging into stuff that I shelved for various reasons. Here is M31 and its companions shot last year after I just got into this sport. At the time I did not yet have the gear for guiding, and clearly I couldn't care less about being fussy with focusing either! In this case I had a decent number of subs at 180 sec. and even some at 240, but left the 240s out. I remember not pursuing this data because I was not satisfied with the framing and, considering the size of M 31, hoped that I would make this a 4X4 mosaic. But I feel that at the very least, what the heck, just process it!

I also include as a revision, a cropped view of the core which I processed to enhance the clouds that are only faintly evident in the core region of the original view. In fact, I was somewhat surprised to see clouds so close to the center. I am not sure if M 31 is classified as a barred spiral. (Upon research, it turns out that it is classified as a barred spiral!) I often cannot see the bars in many that are so classified. Even so, the clouds so close to the center that appear to be a continuation of at least one spiral arm closely into the center would suggest to me that it is not. The extension of the spiral arm (as delineated by the clouds themselves) has an interesting spoked arc section that runs from about 4 o'clock to 12 o'clock right of center. But there are also interesting and less organized clouds much closer and circling the densest part of the core itself. My guess is that there are even more that could be seen if these were someone's primary telescopic objective.

Also of interest is the appearance of the rather newly confirmed warp within the main disk. To me, every time I have see photos of this galaxy, I can see that warp. Thoughts suggest that this warp is caused by gravitational interactions with one or more of the two satellite galaxies. Hmm, funny that these galaxies, with M 32 being so close, can do this broadly yet themselves not appear to be completely disrupted by the gravity of M 31. To me this warp is too pervasive and smoothed out across the the whole inner 1/2 of the disk (in my narrow view image, almost across 80% of the disk) that at this point in M 31's history I would put my money on it having occurred sometime well in M 31's past and likely due to the merger of a more substantial galaxy. Maybe M 32 and M 110 carry relatively much more dark matter with them than M 31?

I also like the hint of two cloud arcs on either side of the core of M 110. This is a feature that I see in many other photos of M 31.

M 32 appears as a simple elliptical galaxy. I believe it is, but while processing, I could see a significant arc of halo stars opposite the side of M 31. Unfortunately, it is not visible in the version I present here. No doubt this is a tidal effect cause by its proximity to M 31. Though it appears so close to M 31, you would think that M 32 would look much more gravitationally disrupted by its proximity to M 31. Especially, if we are believed that M 32 could be the reason for M 31's warp. What gives? M 110 also has a halo that looks tidally affected. In my photo, this halo is somewhat evident.