Hubble M31 PHAT+PHAST Mosaic
About This Image
Caption
This is the largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble overlapping snapshots that were challenging to stitch together. The galaxy is so close to us, that in angular size it is six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon, and can be seen with the unaided eye. For Hubble's pinpoint view, that's a lot of celestial real estate to cover. This stunning, colorful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. That's still a fraction of Andromeda's population. And the stars are spread across about 2.5 billion pixels. The detailed look at the resolved stars will help astronomers piece together the galaxy's past history that includes mergers with smaller satellite galaxies.
About The Object
- Object Name
- M31, Andromeda Galaxy, NGC 224
- Object Description
- Spiral Galaxy
- R.A. Position
- 00:42
- Dec. Position
- +41:15
- Constellation
- Andromeda
- Distance
- 2.5 million light-years
About The Data
- Data Description
- Data of M31 were obtained from the HST PHAT and PHAST Treasury proposals: P.I. J. Dalcanton and B. Williams (University of Washington) et al. 12058, 12073, 12109, 12107, 12074, 12105, 12113, 12075, 12057, 12111, 12115, 12071, 12114, 12072, 12056, 12106, 12059, 12108, 12110, 12112, 12055, 12076, 12070, 16778, 16778, 16796, 16796, 16797, 16797, 16798, 16798, 16799, 16799, 16800, 16800, 16801
- Instrument
- ACS
- Exposure Dates
- July 2010 - Dec 2022
- Filters
- F475W, F814W
About The Image
- Color Info
- This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F475W (g) Yellow: F814W (I)
- Compass and Scale Image
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About The Object
- Object Name
- A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
- Object Description
- The type of astronomical object.
- R.A. Position
- Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
- Dec. Position
- Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
- Constellation
- One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
- Distance
- The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
About The Data
- Data Description
- Proposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
- Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
- Instrument
- The science instrument used to produce the data.
- Exposure Dates
- The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
- Filters
- The camera filters that were used in the science observations.
About The Image
- Color Info
- A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.
- Compass and Scale Image
- An astronomical image with a scale that shows how large an object is on the sky, a compass that shows how the object is oriented on the sky, and the filters with which the image was made.
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