The Andromeda Galaxy Group.

 

The Andromeda Galaxy Group
Seestar S30 with infra red filter. 2.5 hours of 1 minute subs.
captured at the Jodrell Plank Observatory
November 23rd 2025
Image Credit: Kurt Thrust

  

" The Andromeda Group, which includes M31, M32 and M110 (all visible in the above image) are very well imaged by astro-imagers and a bit like the Moon easy to overlook. Indeed, you will find a number of our images of the Andromeda Galaxy on the JPO blog.

Whilst we were under the stars the other night, Kurt remembered that we hadn't used the Seestar S30 to capture data from this group of galaxies. It was also a very good time to image the group with the constellations Andromeda and Pegasus riding high in our southern sky. In all we captured 150 x 60 second subs, which were stacked by the Seestar's on board firmware. Pip Stakkert has spent much of the day processing this stack using Affinity Photo, GraXpert, StarnetGUI and ImagePlus6.5.

We were all a bit amazed at how well the Seestar S30 performed on this target" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"The Andromeda Galaxy Group—dominated by the spiral giant M31 and its two bright satellite galaxies, M32 and M110—offers a vivid look into the dynamics of galactic evolution within our Local Group. M31, located about 2.5 million light-years away, is the nearest major spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and is on a slow, gravitationally driven collision course with us. Its tightly wound arms, rich with star-forming regions and dust lanes, contrast with the compact, smooth profile of M32, a dwarf elliptical galaxy shaped by tidal interactions with its parent. On the opposite side lies M110, a larger dwarf elliptical whose diffuse structure and signs of past star formation hint at a more complex history. Together, these three galaxies capture a snapshot of the hierarchical processes—accretion, tidal shaping, and galactic interaction—that define the cosmic evolution of galaxy groups across the universe". - Karl Segin outreach officer at the JPO.

" Kurt asked me to investigate the use of the VeraLux_Hypermetric_Stretch script in SIRIL software. I decided to try it out on the Seestar S30 data for the Andromeda Group. I was surprised how quickly this script lifted the finer details in M31's structure. The following two images combine the SIRIL stretched data with the data stretched manually by Kurt. I think this may offer some benefits when processing future data" - Pip Stakkert engineer at the JPO.

Galaxy Group without stars. Credit: Pip Stakkert

Galaxy Group with stars. Credit: Pip Stakkert

Andromeda and Perseus rising in Northern Hemisphere autumnal skies.

 

The M31 group of Galaxies in Andromeda : Canon 600D DSLR and Samyang 135mm F2 lens reduced with filter rings. Stack of 60x1min exp at ISO1600.

" The early morning hours of the 29-09-2024 were both clear and steady, so excellent conditions for astro-imaging. Now the M31 group of galaxies is a bit of a astro-imaging cliche but however many times the Astro-team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory photograph it, each year in autumn when the constellation Andromeda rides high, someone just has to point a camera in its direction. This year Kurt could not help using the Samyang 135mm lens to provide a wider field of view of  M31, M110 and M32. There are just so many stars in this part of the sky that we decided to use software to reduce the brightness and number of stars. We also captured some photons from 'in and around' Andromeda's mum (aka the constellation Cassiopeia) which await processing by Pip Stakkert - but more of that later." -Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.