This was captured on the first night of the 2011 Oregon Star Party and there was smoke in the air, especially to the west. So I chose a bright target to the east, even though I couldn’t fit it all in the frame. Andromeda is a spiral galaxy that is fairly similar to our own Milky Way galaxy and our closest neighboring galaxy of similar size. Of course, “neighboring” may seem like a strange word to use, since it is over 2 million light years away! That means that this is actually a photograph of what Andromeda looked like 2 million years ago.
Scope: AT111EDT at f/5.6
Mount: CGEM
Camera: QSI 583 at –
Exposure: 19 x 240s L, 16 x 60s L, 9 x 240s RGB (3 hrs 20 min total)