A look in the Mirror

Have you even wondered what our own Milky Way Galaxy looks like from our galaxtic neighbors? NGC 7331 of the Deer Lick group is considered to be very analogous to our very own galaxy. It lies some 50 million light years away in the constellation Pegasus. 2 background galaxies can be seen above which are about 1/10th the size, which translates to being about 10 times further away. The galactic bulge, consisting of a higher concentration of stars, can be clearly seen above and below the galaxy. If this was our own galaxy that we were looking at, our sun and accompanying solar system would lie about 2/3 of the way out from the center, and we would be just 1 of over 200 billion stars.

Image information:

Taken at Star Lodge Observatory in October 2006
Camera: ST10-xme
Telescope: Takahashi Mewlon 300
LRGB 120:170:130:220