2021 - Image of the Week #47

[NFLD Stephen]

Thanks Jonathan and Brant! Some excellent shots this week, I'm very humbled to have won...I mean, just look at the eyes on that owl!

Stephen

[Jonathan Huyer]

Yes the owl would have taken the title for sure this week, if it wasn't outshone by 100 billion stars . By the way, I should also comment that I really like the way you oriented the image of Andromeda. With astrophotography you have the added task of deciding which way should be up, and the orientation you chose certainly helps make the image powerful and dramatic.

[Zach]

Congrats Stephen! An awe inspiring shot indeed.


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[Joel Eade]

What can I say?

I tried but hard to beat an entire galaxy in a single frame

Fantastic image!

[NFLD Stephen]

Thanks again everyone. I should point out that it's actually three galaxies, one probably wouldn't have been enough! The "smudge" in the centre just below andromeda is actually M110 Galaxy and the bright spot directly "above" M110 and just on the upper edge of andromeda is Galaxy M32. According to a google search, M110 is a dwarf elliptical galaxy 2.6 million lightyears away and consisting of 10 billion stars; M32 is 2.5 million lightyears away and has an estimated 1 trillion stars (and suspected to have a black hole at the centre). Andromeda Galaxy (M31) itself is also estimated around 1 trillion stars which is around the same order of magnitude as our own milky way galaxy. So it definitely took more than 100 billion stars to win this week!

As for framing, Jonathan you're right that certainly one difficult aspect of Astrophotography. Especially with dim objects it's hard to know exactly what you have in the frame when you're taking the shots. You have to use other stars as a guide and try to visualize how big the targets are. For the capture I had the long axis of andromeda parallel to the long axis of the sensor cause I wasn't exactly sure how large it would be and I didn't want to clip the edges. Andromeda is actually quite large and almost fills a full frame sensor at the 447mm focal length used here. Much bigger than the apparent size of the moon!

Stephen

[Jayson]

Congratulations Stephen!