[petuniasevan]

As a child I lived within sight (if it wasn't smoggy) of Mount Wilson. Near its summit is the famed 100-inch Hooker telescope, where Edwin Hubble's hard work and long nights culminated in the proof that was needed - spectrograms and photos of M31 that revealed it to be no nebula but another galaxy.

It's not really a stretch, then, to say that Hubble discovered the universe from Mount Wilson 80 years ago. And his namesake telescope continues to reveal it in ever greater detail. I think he would have felt honored.

Get on the APOD PING list!

[petuniasevan]

APOD PING!

[martin_fierro]

Bears a striking resemblance to a galaxy long ago and far, far away. <|:)~

[RightWhale]

Even with the sky as bad as it has gotten, M31 is still visible, barely, to the naked eye even when the Milky Way is washed out and stars dimmer than mag 4 are invisible. That's funny when you think we are inside the Milky Way and M31 is a million lightyears away. It's easy to spot once you have the route marked out starting from the Great Square of Pegasus.

[LibWhacker]

Here's one of my favorite pics of Andromeda -- by an amateur with a relatively small scope.
Here in the suburbs of Sacramento, it's not visible with the naked eye (or is it just my aging
eyes?) but you can easily see it with binoculars.

[Michael Barnes]

Beautiful photo

..Just take astep back and think about ALL the exploration there is in that galaxy alone. And we haven't even cratched the surface of our own...hell, we don't even have a valid "picture" of our own.