Miguel Claro is an expert photographer, creator and science communicator primarily based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular photos of the evening sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photograph Ambassador and member of The World At Evening and the official astrophotographer of the Darkish Sky Alqueva Reserve, he focuses on astronomical “Skyscapes” that join each Earth and the evening sky.
5 years after my first try and seize the Andromeda Galaxy surrounded by faint hydrogen alpha (Ha) clouds taken with a DSLR digicam again in 2020, and impressed by the latest discovery by Strottner-Drechsler-Sainty of the oxygen-III (OIII) emission arc, I made a decision to get again to M31 and check out my luck.
Spanning roughly 220,000 light-years throughout, the Andromeda Galaxy is the most important galaxy of the Native Group, which additionally incorporates the Milky Method, the Triangulum galaxy, and about 30 different smaller galaxies.
I made a decision to current my remaining view of M31 in slightly totally different method, framing with a rotation that would assist direct our consideration to essentially the most attention-grabbing elements of the immersive scene, holding in thoughts to protect the pure degree of brightness of the core.
The picture encompasses a lengthy integration of round 80 hours in HaOIII emission utilizing a twin band filter, to indicate the colourful subject of faint glowing ionized hydrogen gasoline the place the galaxy appears to be immersed in. Regardless of these faint clouds, all of the galaxy form has a robust emission seen with Ha 3nm filter.
The big-scale cloud formations seen within the foreground belong to our personal Milky Method galaxy, as do the a number of distinct colourful stars which encompass the diffuse spiral form of M31. Whereas its spiral arms stand out in seen gentle, the arms appear like rings when considered in ultraviolet gentle.
Being websites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as proof that Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 greater than 200 million years in the past.
Even with all my efforts and challenges alongside the best way, 80 hours the place not sufficient to realize the demanding degree of excellent knowledge wanted for revealing the faint OIII arc, specifically tough in One Shot Shade (OSC) cameras, so after analyzing the info with the assistance of my skilled pal Yann Saint, I took the choice of not embrace the OIII knowledge on the arc for being inadequate to disclose the right anticipated form and element.
Nonetheless, the OIII sign included and visual within the arms of M31 may reveal dozens of planetary nebulas.
I hope you take pleasure in my outcome. The picture was captured from Darkish Sky Alqueva Observatory, in Cumeada, Portugal.
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