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Credit & Copyright: Kees Scherer
Explanation:
What does the Andromeda galaxy really look like?
The
featured image shows how our
Milky Way Galaxy's closest major
galactic neighbor really appears in a long exposure through
Earth's busy skies and with a digital camera that introduces normal imperfections.
The picture is a stack of 223 images, each a 300 second exposure,
taken from a garden observatory in
Portugal
during 2019.
Obvious image deficiencies include bright parallel
airplane trails, long and continuous
satellite trails, short
cosmic ray streaks, and
bad pixels.
These imperfections were actually not removed with
Photoshop
specifically, but rather
greatly reduced
with a series of computer software packages that included
Astro Pixel Processor, DeepSkyStacker, and PixInsight.
All of this work was done not to
deceive you with a
digital fantasy
that has little to do with the real likeness of the
Andromeda galaxy (M31),
but to minimize Earthly artifacts that have nothing
to do with the distant galaxy and so better recreate
what M31 really does look like.
APOD's email for image submissions has changed. Please see: APOD Submissions
APOD's main NASA site is
moving:
From apod.nasa.gov to
science.nasa.gov/apod
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day