d-041209-m31

In gallery: Astronomy Deep-sky Galaxies

The Great Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is one of the closest neighbors to our own Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 2.4 million light years. It and our galaxy are part of the Local Group, a handful of galaxies that are part of the Virgo Cluster. The central bright part of M31 is visible to the naked eye under dark skies.

Imaged with a Hutech-modified Canon 300D (Digital Rebel). Exposure time was approximately 6x10 minutes.