I took this picture fall 2024 in Door County, WI. I set my iPhone to long exposure and got the Milky Way, which totally blew my mind. I think that the circled area is the Andromeda galaxy. Am I right?
https://i.redd.it/y5kop9y07tge1.jpeg
I took this picture fall 2024 in Door County, WI. I set my iPhone to long exposure and got the Milky Way, which totally blew my mind. I think that the circled area is the Andromeda galaxy. Am I right?
https://i.redd.it/y5kop9y07tge1.jpeg
17 Comments
An app like Stellarium will help you identify everything in the sky
If you point it towards the same part of the sky at the same time of day (maybe same time of year, I’m too tired to figure out whether that’s necessary right now) you should get the same results.
Yep, where there is low light emission, you easily see it as a smudge in the night sky.
I asked Claude for you. Of course take the response with a grain of salt:
“Based on the image, which shows a starry night sky with what appears to be part of the Milky Way visible, there’s a faint elongated smudge circled in red. Given its appearance and the fact that it’s visible to the naked eye/basic astrophotography, this is most likely the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).
The reasons for this identification:
1. Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way and one of the few galaxies visible to the naked eye
2. It appears as an elongated fuzzy patch in the night sky, which matches what we see in the circle
3. Its apparent size and brightness in the image are consistent with how Andromeda typically appears in night sky photos
4. The positioning relative to the Milky Way band visible in the lower portion of the image is consistent with where you’d expect to find Andromeda
The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 million light-years away from Earth and is the largest galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies. It’s also on a collision course with our Milky Way, though that merger won’t happen for about 4.5 billion years.“
and that’s just like, the visible inner 1/6th of it or something.
You people are amazing! Thank you for the tips and info.
It’s the only galaxy you can properly “see” with most current phone cameras and the only one you can see with your own eyes if it is dark enough.
I’d say, probably. There’s only about four you can see with an unzoomed picture. Andromeda, Triangulum, and the large and small magellanic clouds.
This one looks way more like Andromeda than the other three.
You could also use Sky Map or another app to find Andromeda in the sky the see if it’s not too far from the Milky Way arm also in you picture.
Looks like it! I remember seeing it for the first time when my dad and I drove out into rural Wyoming for the eclipse there a few years back, and was just awestruck by the beauty of the night sky out there, and seeing Andromeda.
I wonder what the night sky looks like to owls?
Andromeda has an apparent magnitude of 3.4, so you can see with the naked eye on dark days. But it may be the Magellanic Clouds too, or some nebula. The best way is to see which constellation it is or through some augmented reality application.
Get the app, Planets. Seriously, its free & excellent.
“Andromeda’s a big wide open galaxy
Nothing in it for me
‘Cept my heart that’s lazy
Runnin’ from my own life now
I’m really turnin’ some time
Looking up to the sky for something I may never find”
Yes, you have captured our galactic neighbor that’s 2.5 million light years or 14700000000000000000 miles away. Just for context, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, if traveling at the speed of a mile a second(3600mph). You would need to travel 34 times longer than the current age of the universe to reach our closest Galaxy. It would take 466 billion years traveling at 3600 mph and it would still take around 5 billion years traveling at 360,000 mph (100 miles per second)
And if you wanted to count all the stars in this galaxy and started counting at a rate of one star per second every second starting today. It would take you around 32,000 years to count all the stars in that Galaxy alone.
https://youtu.be/udAL48P5NJU?si=YJCLWQlV8k_8hY32
I urge everyone to watch the above video in full screen in the highest quality with the volume up and no distractions and just acknowledge what you’re actually looking at, a real image taken of a galaxy that is currently existing out there by just an immense distance away
It’s so awesome. The largest, oldest and farthest structure that we can see with the naked eye.
And to think it’s fundamentally no different than our night sky, just viewed from beyond. Really puts our existence into perspective.
I took a picture of the night sky on an I phone too. The image was amazing. I can’t believe how good it is. I’m wondering if it’s fake. How can it be so good?
Get stellarium for your phone, and next time you will know that it is. And more importantly how to find it.