The World of Stars in the Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is just bright enough in our sky that it can be recognized with the naked eye. However, since the galaxy is so large and so close, it is difficult to observe the whole region with a large telescope. One of the best features of the Subaru Telescope is its wide field imaging capability thanks to the prime focus camera. In 2013, Subaru released a stunning image of the Andromeda Galaxy taken with Subaru Telescope’s new prime-focus wide-field camera, Hyper Suprime-Cam. The camera’s enormous field of view allowed the entire Andromeda to be captured in a single shot, while keeping consistently sharp resolution across the entire image. These observations give us valuable information about how spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way Galaxy formed.