A 30 minute exposure with an STL-1301E CCD Camera thru Kopernik's 20-inch Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain telescope working at F/5.3. The field of view is about 20x23 arc minutes with North at the top.

• Click here to see wide field images showing the entire Andromeda, plus additional information on the galaxy.
  

Nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy:

The Kopernik image above shows only the central portion of Spiral Galaxy M-31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Even a small telescope shows a gradually brightening central bulge and a star-like nucleus. Like other spiral galaxies M-31 has a central bulge of very ancient stars that are yellow to red in color. The image also shows the beginnings of the outer disk and spiral arms, including dust clouds. Astronomers now believe that all galaxies have a very massive black hole at the very center of the nucleus. However in the case of M-31, images from the Hubble Space Telescope show that M-31 has a double nucleus, with the second massive object perhaps being the nucleus of another galaxy that M-31 had cannibalized in the recent past.

THE COMPANIONS OF THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY: M-31 has four small satellite companions, dwarf systems of the elliptical type. All are apparently at the distance of the main system and are gravitationally connected with it. They are M-32(NGC 221), M-110(NGC 205), NGC 147, and NGC 185.

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• M-31, NGC 224
• Magnitude: 4.0
• Constellation: Andromeda
• RA: 00h 42m 44.3s
• Dec: +41d 16' 08" Epoch 2000
• Size (mins): 188.8 x 61.5
• Classification: SA(s)b I
                          Spiral, S-shaped, Luminosity class I
  
  

George Normandin, KAS

December 1st, 2008