Widefield Image of Andromeda / Cassiopeia by Danny Thomas

Widefield Image of Cassiopiea and Andromeda - click to enlarge

Unguided 20 second exposure at ISO1600 using 18mm lens on a Canon EOS350 digital SLR.  Some post-processing using the curves tool to adjust the colour levels and enhance the contrast in the sky.

The camera was pointing almost directly overhead at the Milky way through Cassiopeia.

The field of view is rich with deep sky objects but the limited exposure only captured the brightest objects.  Within this field of view are:

• The constellation Andromeda (And)
• The constellation Cassiopeia (Cas)
• Part of the constellation Cepheus (Cep)
• Part of the constellation Camelopardalis (Cam)
• Part of the constellation Lacerta (Lac)
• Part of the constellation Pegasus (Peg)
• Part of the constellation Perseus (Per)
• Part of the constellation Pisces (Psc)
• NGC 7822
• NGC 224 / Great Nebula in Andromeda / M 31
• NGC 598 / M 33 / Triangulum galaxy
• IC 1805
• IC 1848

M32 The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31) or NGC 224 is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. Seen in the constellation Andromeda, it is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. As it is visible as a faint smudge in a dark sky, it is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye. M31 is estimated to contain one trillion stars, more than twice the 200-400 billion in our own galaxy but due to the presence of dark matter n the Milky Way their masses are thought to be approximately equal.

Open clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884 are bright enough to be seen from a dark location without even binoculars. Although their discovery probably predates written history, but the Greek astronomer Hipparchus (190 to 120 BC) did catalog what we now call the “double cluster”. The clusters are more than 7000 light years from Earth, toward the constellation of Perseus and they are separated by a few hundred light years.

Widefield Image of Cassiopiea and Andromeda – annotated – click to enlarge

Stellarium Screenshot – click to enlarge