A Little Drop of Galaxy

A drop of water seems to hold an entire galaxy in this creative macro-astrophotograph.

In the imaginative work of cosmic nature photography, a close-up lens was used to image a previously made picture of a galaxy, viewed through a water drop suspended from a stem.

A favorite of many telescope-wielding astroimagers, the galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31.

About 100,000 light-years across, that majestic galaxy’s spiral arms and cosmic dust lanes are curved and distorted in the image contained in the centimeter-sized droplet.

Andromeda is some 2.5 million light-years distant, but this project was still carried out while spending time indoors.