Another lap completed

Another year is coming to an end and planet Earth has completed another lap around the Sun. This year has been exciting in many ways with the release of my new book Light-year - a year of light and the release of 5 stamps with my Northern light photos.

As for astronomical events we got to see a Mercury transit in May and later in the summer I went further up north above the arctic circle to capture the midnight summer solstice Sun. The Northern lights season kicked off quite early this year and I did manage to find the the Northern light factory. Also we had an exceptional super moon in November and for me the year ended with a real highlight, seeing a lunar fog bow, such a beauty!

I wish you all a happy new year and lots of clear skies in 2017!

A small planet flying through space and time.

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The size of the Andromeda Galaxy

It was quite some time since I photographed the Andromeda galaxy so last night I had another go at it. For this photo I used a total exposure time of 75 minutes to bring out the details in the galaxy.

It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way with a distance of 2.5 million light-years. Just stop and think for that a minute, the light has traveled 2.5 million years before it arrived to Earth. Since the speed of light is ~300 000 km per second, we can quite easily come to the conclusion that the Andromeda galaxy is extremely far away.

But, since it at the same time is extremely big, its size in the sky is as big as 6 full moons placed next to each other.

In this photo I took last night I've included the size of the Moon as it appears in the sky, just so that you can get an idea on how big the Andromeda galaxy really is in the sky. Since the light from the galaxy also is very faint due to the long distance, we can just barley see the galaxy with the naked eye. But if we could see it in its full glory, this is how big it would look compared to the Moon. Quite a view.

Nikon D810A, Nikon AF-S 300mm/f2.8, 75 minute exposure, ISO 1600

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