This Great Galaxy of the deep sky far beyond all the stars in the constellation of Andromeda is the largest and closest of all galaxies seen from the northern hemisphere. Visible faintly to the naked eye (the only one out of billions) on a clear dark moonless night, it appears rather small in this wide-field photograph. It's length actually covers over six full moon widths across our sky though it is some 2.2 million light years distant. Thus it appears to us as it actually looked about 2.2 million years ago and it's light had to travel through all that space and time just to be recorded in this photograph.
Photographic Data:
Pentax SMC 135mm f/3.5 M lens at f/3.5 on Losmandy G11 mount, unguided.
Exposure: 14 minutes
Film: Hypered Kodak LE400
Date: Nov. 27, 2000
