#m32

Saphonic Wave! My lovely ship kid for Soundwave and Shockwave!

8 hours of stacking to generate the image, and the parallax was made using combatwombat/tiefling

This is NOT true depth

M32, A Dwarf Galaxy with A Secret

Galaxies come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but one compact elliptical dwarf galaxy has a fair number of secrets.

You may not immediately identify the galaxy, but you'll be far more familiar with the larger galaxy that it orbits.

M31, the Andromeda spiral galaxy is the closest major galaxy to our Milky Way, and appears to be heading right for us.

The galaxy itself is a monster, but has a fair few odd features all of its own, and it could be that M32, the smaller blob in the upper left, not far from the centre, could be partially responsible.

While there are several theories to how such a compact elliptical dwarf galaxy could find itself here, one popular view is that it's the remains of a spiral galaxy that merged with Andromeda around 2 billion years ago. A recent merger would explain some of the odd morphology of M31, but would equally explain how the other galaxy shed it's spiral arms and body to the now larger M31, but the central bulge being much more tightly bound to its own gravitational influence, remained and now orbits the cannibal galaxy that is heading to munch on our Milky Way as I write.

Another key part of the evidence for this theory lies at the very centre of M32, a supermassive black hole comparable with Sag A* in size, the black hole that is at the centre of our own Milky Way. The stars surrounding it also appear to be old yellow and red stars, similar to our own sun, something commonly seen at the centre of most spiral galaxies, where star formation is uncommon.

アンドロメダ星雲

M31 Andromeda Galaxy at Amagi Plateau Golf Course in Shizuoka Pref., Japan.

Camera: Canon EOS 6D (no mod)

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-85EDP (450mm F5.3)

Mount: Takahashi EM-11 Temma2Jr. No touch guide.