Astronomers Capture the Sharpest Image Yet of a Spiral Galaxy
A patient stack of long exposures reveals dust lanes and star nurseries in extraordinary detail.
It took four hundred hours of exposure and a great deal of cloudless patience, but the result is breathtaking: a spiral galaxy resolved down to its glowing nurseries of newborn stars.
Patience as an instrument
The team combined images gathered over two years, aligning them to a fraction of a pixel. The faint outer arms, never before separated from the background, now stand out cleanly.
Astronomy rewards the patient. The universe is in no hurry, and neither, it turns out, are good telescopes.
The full-resolution image has been released for free public and educational use.
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