Galaxies in perspective: our own Milky Way, and a couple 'local' galaxies a couple million light years away.

The left side of the frame is taken up by our own Milky Way as it runs through the constellation Cassiopeia.

Above and right of center is the obvious oval of the Andromeda galaxy, M-31.

Near the lower right corner is the lower surface brightness, smaller galaxy M-33.

The second graphic is a sky simulation in planetarium software. The red wire box shows the coverage of the image. Various star clusters (that are within our Milky Way) are shown. Some of them are easy to see in the image. This graphic clearly shows the "W" of Cassiopeia, but in the photograph those stars are lost in the rich fields of the Milky Way.

This image was taken with a 'normal' lens - the lens focal length is equal to the diagonal length of the sensor. (In an APS-C camera a normal lens is 35mm. In a full frame/35mm camera a normal lens is 50mm.)

#NewMexico #Photography #Astrophotography #Galaxy #MilkyWay #Astronomy