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Cassiopeia and the Andromeda Galaxy

Constellation Cassiopeia and the Andromeda Galaxy.

The 5 main stars in Cassiopeia form a distinctive "W or M" shape. Starting at the upper left, their names are Caph (54 ly distant), Schedar (228 ly distant), Gamma Cassiopeiae (610 ly distant), Ruchbah (99 ly distant), and Segin (440 ly distant).

To the right of Segin are the Double Star clusters, H and Chi Persei. These are open star clusters, each of which consists of young stars still moving together from the primordial cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the cluster’s stars. 

The Andromeda Galaxy, located in the upper right of the photo, is 2.537 million light-years from earth and 220,000 ly in diameter. The Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are on a collision course and should collide in about 4 to 5 billion years.

This photo is a stack of 4 one-minute images taken with an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II, using a 12-40mm f2.8 PRO lens, set at 12mm and f4, ISO 1000, WB 5000K. I used an iOptron SkyGuider Pro camera mount to compensate for the earth's rotation.


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Cassiopeia and the Andromeda Galaxy
Published:

Cassiopeia and the Andromeda Galaxy

The Constellation Cassiopeia and the Andromeda Galaxy

Published: