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| M31 the great spiral galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda |
This week, I took the above photograph of M31 from our backyard. I am very pleased with this image as it shows a lot more detail than I have managed to obtain in previous attempts to capture this famous deep sky object. I used my Canon DSLR camera attached directly to my 127mm Meade refractor driven on a NEQ PRO6 Synscan equatorial mount. I took 25 or more 15 second light subs and a number of dark and flat exposures. These shots were then aligned and stacked in Registax 6. I used Photoshop to bring out the detail in the spiral arms and to adjust the over exposure of the galactic core.
As well as M31, the satellite galaxy, M32 can be seen in this photograph, above M31 and to the left of centre. The light from M31 and recorded on my photograph has been travelling through space for over 2.5million years. Our species had not evolved and our ancestors, Australopithecus Africanus, were hunting and gathering on the African Continent, when these recorded photons of light set off from alien stars outside our home galaxy the Milky Way. This is a real time example of "A galaxy, a long time ago and far away"!
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| The skull of our common ancestor Australopithecus Africanus |
For further information regarding early hominids see:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html
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