APOD: 2026 September 27 – Andromeda Before and After Photoshop - NASA Science

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 27 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss   APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Before After Andromeda Before and After Photoshop Explanation: What does the Andromeda galaxy really look like? The featured before image shows how our Milky Way Galaxy ‘s closest major galactic neighbor really appears in a long exposure through Earth ‘s busy skies and with a digital camera that introduces normal imperfections. The picture is a stack of 223 images, each a 300 second exposure, taken from a garden observatory in Por t ugal during 2019. Obvious image deficiencies include bright parallel airplane trails , long and continuous satellite trails , short cosmic ray streaks , and bad pixels . In the after image, these imperfections were actually not removed with Photoshop specifically, but rather greatly reduced with a series of computer software packages that included Astro Pixel Processor, DeepSkyStacker, and PixInsight. All of this work was done not to deceive you with a digital fantasy that has little to do with the real likeness of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), but to minimize Earthly artifacts that have nothing to do with the distant galaxy and so better recreate what M31 really does look like . APOD’s email for image submissions has changed. Please see: APOD Submissions APOD’s main NASA site is moving : From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod Tomorrow’s picture: cosmic latte Date September 26, 2026 Credit & Copyright: Kees Scherer Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC , NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. Random APOD Generator Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 September 26 – Mirrored Meteor and Milky Way Tomorrow’s Image — Company newsroom — sourced from NASA. Matter furnished by the company. Not a Notice Nearby paid placement. This page reprints matter furnished by the company from its official newsroom. Notice Nearby did not write this release. Read the original: https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2026-september-27-andromeda-before-photoshop