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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Hundreds of Stars, Thousands of Stars, Millions and Billions and Trillions of Stars! | |
Wow, thanks so much for all the kind words!
To answer the two questions asked!
Yes, I am aware of the new M31 work; the guy who spearheaded that effort is a well known amateur astrophotographer, with whom I have occasional email conversations. And my other imaging scope, a 14.5" Ritchey-Chretien, used to be owned by him (and was used to create an incredible high-resolution mosaic of M31 in 2002, a large print of which I bought for one of our children--and which still has a place of honor on the ceiling of her bedroom in her apartment)/
Those lines on the image appear in the raw data, so I'm pretty sure they're real (not a processing artifact). In all likelihood, they're wispy "dark nebulae," which are gas clouds that aren't emitting or reflecting light, so they just sit there being somewhat--or completely--opaque, showing up only because of a lack of stars in that area. That's just a guess, but probably a pretty good one. Sharp eyes you have, sir!
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