Astrophotographer Ronald Brecher has taken a breathtaking picture of the Andromeda Galaxy, our closest spiral galaxy neighbor, about 2.5 million light-years away.
His photo shows incredible detail in Andromeda’s wide spiral arms, glowing with the light of new stars being born. You can also see dark bands of dust wrapping around its bright center, where scientists believe a supermassive black hole sits—about 140 million times the size of our sun.
Two smaller galaxies also appear in the image: M32, a bright round spot just above Andromeda’s disk, and Messier 110, the faint patch below, which holds about 10 billion stars.
To capture the photo, Brecher spent 38 hours between August 17 and September 2 this year, working from his home in Guelph, Canada. He used a Sky-Watcher Esprit 70 EDX telescope and a QHY367C Pro camera.
Brecher wrote on his website, “Whenever I look at this galaxy — which I often can with my naked eye — I think about how the light started its journey before humans even existed. Pretty cool.”
You can spot Andromeda yourself on clear nights in late September. Look just above and to the left of the star Mirach in the Andromeda constellation. A quick trick: the width of your closed fist equals about 10 degrees of the night sky.
For years, astronomers believed Andromeda would crash into and merge with our Milky Way in about 4 billion years. But new research suggests that may not be certain. University of Helsinki scientist Til Sawala said the chance of a collision is now more like “a coin flip” than a guarantee.
