The above image is of the famous Andromeda Galaxy as photographed by the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope with the QUEST camera.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is located some 2.9 million light-years away. From dark light pollution free skies it is one of the most distant objects visible to unaided eyes. In 1764 Charles Messier made it the thirty first object, M 31, of his famous catalog.
Also visible in the image are two of Andromeda's companion galaxies. M 32 is visible to the right of the bright nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy and M 110 is visible near the lower left part of the image.
The image was taken with the QUEST camera operating in driftscan mode. During driftscan mode the telescope is stationary. Because the telescope does not correct for Earth's rotation objects drift across the field of view. The QUEST camera records the data as objects drift past. The image was taken 2003 Oct 6 UT through a Gunn i filter. The image has been dark subtracted and flattened. The dark lines and bright streaks are not real, but are artifacts of the imaging process.
More information on the Palomar-QUEST Survey
Technical information on the QUEST camera
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