M31, the Andromeda Galaxy rises at Capitol Reef

A few thousand feet from my observing site at Capitol Reef National Park was a nameless sandstone cliff. Rising a few million trillion times farther away was the great Andromeda Galaxy. Visible with the naked eye from a dark site, in binoculars the galaxy appears much as it does in my photo.

This was shot with my 85mm lens at f/4. The cliff is blurred from the motion of the camera as it moved to track the stars.