Hubble’s panoramic view of the Andromeda Galaxy

Esahubble_heic2501a_1024

esahubble_heic2501a January 16th, 2025

Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Williams (University of Washington)

This the largest photomosaic ever assembled from NASA/ESA 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 snapshots. 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. [Image description: The Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy, spreads across the image. It is tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight so that it appears very oval. The borders of the galaxy are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images against a black background. The outer edges of the galaxy are blue, while the inner two-thirds is yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty filamentary clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o’clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. Hubble’s sharp vision distinguishes about 200 million stars within the image.]

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/heic2501a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Andromeda Galaxy M 31 Messier 31 NGC 224
Esahubble_heic2501a_128
 

Position Details Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 0h 43m 43.8s
DEC = 41° 23’ 8.9”
Orientation
North is 125.0° CW
Field of View
2.3 x 0.5 degrees
Constellation
Andromeda

Color Mapping Details Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (g) 475.0 nm
Yellow Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 817.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Blue
Yellow
Esahubble_heic2501a_1280
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ID
heic2501a
Subject Category
Subject Name
Andromeda Galaxy, M 31, Messier 31, NGC 224
Credits
NASA, ESA, B. Williams (University of Washington)
Release Date
2025-01-16T20:15:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/heic2501a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Blue, Yellow
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
g, I
Central Wavelength
475, 817
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
10.9324088386, 41.3858104149
Reference Dimension
42208.0, 9870.0
Reference Pixel
21104.0, 4935.0
Scale
-5.551820996312463e-05, 5.551820996312463e-05
Rotation
-125.02223862026
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
heic2501a
Metadata Date
2025-01-19T17:52:06.948386
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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