Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Andromeda (And)  ·  Contains:  Andromeda Galaxy  ·  M 110  ·  M 31  ·  M 32  ·  NGC 205  ·  NGC 221  ·  NGC 224
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V1 in Andromeda, John Swan
V1 in Andromeda
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V1 in Andromeda

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
V1 in Andromeda, John Swan
V1 in Andromeda
Powered byPixInsight

V1 in Andromeda

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Description

It's often said that great discoveries are made by building on work done by others and Edwin Hubble's discovery in 1923 that M31 was not a Nebula, but in fact a galaxy of it's own is no exception.

His remarkable and perspective shifting discovery was made possible by Henrietta Swan Leavitt's work, providing astronomers with the first standard candle. Her discovery allowed one to know the true luminosity of a Cepheid by simply observing its pulsation period. This in turn allowed Hubble to determine the distance to the star, by comparing its known luminosity to its observed brightness and thus changing our understanding of the Universe.  The star in question is known as V1. 

Today is actually the anniversary of the death of Henrietta Swan Leavitt.

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