by Craig and Tammy Temple
Perhaps our nearest spiral galaxy, The Great Andromeda Galaxy will, one day, collide with our own Milky Way. At magnitude 4.4, it's central core is easily visible to the naked eye on a moonless night. The earliest known observation of this galaxy was in 964 by the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, and was cataloged by Charles Messier in 1764 as M31.
Telescope: Orion 80ED f/7.5 refractor (at f/6)
Accessories: William Optics 0.8x FR/FF vII
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G controlled by EQMOD
Guiding: Orion StarShoot AutoGuider on William Optics ZS66
Camera: Self-modified Canon Digital Rebel XT
Filters: Astronomik CLS-CCD EOS Clip
Exposure: 92 x 240sec @ ISO 800 (6hr. 8min.)
Acquisition: ImagesPlus 3.75 Camera Control
Processing: ImagesPlus 3.75 – Calibrated, registered, Sigma-clipped averaged, DDP
Post-processing: Adobe Photoshop CS4; Gradient XTerminator; Noise Ninja, Noel Carboni's Tools
Date(s): September 28 & 29, 2009
Temperature(s): 64ºF, 60ºF