Favorite M31 images?

I remember a fine photo from the Lick Observatory, mounted as a huge
transparency in the Hayden Planetarium in New York, which latter I
haunted as a child
..
I recently went looking for a very aesthetically appealing image to use
as wallpaper, and the one I found that I like best is a recent mosaic,
by Michael Downing, with an 180 mm TMB on a Paramount ME which I found
in the TMB Yahoo group. Here is the link to the image:
http://www.astroden.com/st11k/tmb180...aic_TMB180.jpg

The NOAO images have much better detail of course and are better
scientifially, and among amateurs the Robert Gendler color images with
his RCOS system are outstanding, but to me aesthetically my favorite is
the Dowing mosaic and now it is my wallpaper.

Comments and other suggestions welcome.
Bill Meyers

That's an incredible image. One feels like they are falling into the
galaxy. You can almost feel the dynamic motion of the spiral arms.

Larry Stedman
Vestal

Larry,
Thanks for replying.Your eloquent descrioption expresses my own feelings
too The Downing image is now wallpaper on my laptop.
But I noticed, in trying to access it from the TMB Yahoo group a second
time, that the link on the TMB Yahoo group seems to be broken now.
Fortunately the link I have posted here still works.
I posted the image also on the Yahoo Starry Nights group, which is deep
sky obserrver oriented, and there were some interesting responses. Tom
Polakis, who is an expert and widely respected observer, suggested an
amateur image of M31 he likes better, with a critique to explain why.
That link is:

http://members.cox.net/jonc97/images...xies/m31_2.htm

Clear skies,
Bill Meyers


Larry Stedman wrote:
That's an incredible image. One feels like they are falling into the
galaxy. You can almost feel the dynamic motion of the spiral arms.

Larry Stedman
Vestal

I respect Tom a lot; his contributions here have been good ones and his
regular observing columns have been excellent.

This other M31 image is one of the standard, color ones... it was so
immediately recognizable, I'm sure I've seen it many, many times before.
It's too familiar to grab me in the way your favorite did.

And that's true even though I had also seen your favorite one or
something like a couples of times before...

Indeed, it reminds me of the series of pictures in Burnham's, where I
first had that 3-D, you are there feeling with M31.

The black-and-white prints provide a sublimity, a sensation of being
under the stars at night that the bright, glossy one (modern mag look)
does not. Also making a difference is the image scale--when one clicks
through to the picture you noted, the Andromeda Galaxy extends well
beyond the frame, contributing to the free-fall through space,
star-laden experience.

I'll have to track down what Tom wrote, though, and see how that affects
my perception of the "slick" contemporary one!

Thanks, Bill, for the links.

Larry Stedman
Vestal