The Andromeda galaxy

One chance. Once chance to get it right, with sooo many things that could go wrong! 

Almost ten years ago I could use for a night a telescope on an equatorial mount to piggyback my Canon T70 with a 200mm f/4 lens and ISO 400 film :D 

One of the targets was of course M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. It was a lot of fun, as one could not see what he's doing and manually guiding 30 minutes it's not an easy task: the slightest mistake could and would of ruined the picture.

But I kept my hand steady, my eye sharp and prayed to the control towers to divert planes from my field of view:

   Take a good look at it as we're going to crash with this giant galaxy in no time (~4 billion years!).  

Milky Way over Las Campanas

The center of our galaxy rises over the Las Campanas Observatory, with the twin 6.5m Magellan telescopes visible at the bottom of the image. It's not too far from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and if you're around there, visit them both!

From the eye of the lama to the little horse, it's all there.