Beneath the winter embrace of the Swiss Alps, the night sky reveals the Andromeda galaxy, our cosmic neighbor. As it glistens above the snowy peaks and trees, the galaxy appears tantalizingly close, as if just around the corner. Yet, this glittering expanse, with its trillion stars, is an awe-inspiring 2.5 million light-years away.
This month marks a century since Edwin Hubble's groundbreaking discovery in October 1923, forever changing our understanding of the universe. On October 6th, 1923, Hubble identified a variable star within the Andromeda Galaxy. This discovery enabled him to measure the distance to what was then termed the “Andromeda Nebula” and believed to be a part of our Milky Way. But Hubble proved it to be an independent galaxy, far beyond our Milky Way, challenging then-prevailing beliefs about the limits of the universe.
Location in a Swiss valey offers a brillinat opportunity to shoot nightscpes with celestial objects and mountains at the background.
I took this image over a year ago, on 12 January 2022. I used a Samyang 135 mm lens @ f/2.8 and a ZWO ASI 2600MC camera (gain 100, bin 1, -10 °C). The setup was mounted on an SW AZGTi mount operating in equatorial mode and was controlled by ASIAIR Pro. I had only about 20 minutes to capture the Andromeda Galaxy before it hid behind the mountain. The data (40x30 s) was collected between 22:40 and 23:02 UT. Once captured, I turned off the tracking and proceeded with capturing the foreground (10x10 s). The foreground mountain was conveniently illuminated by a waxing gibbous moon that night. Both the background sky and the foreground images were calibrated, stacked, and processed in PixInsight, followed by blending and final polishing in Adobe Photoshop. The final image was resized to 40% and cropped.
APOD on 13 November 2023
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