M31 from above

Here we see Andromeda galaxy as viewed from above. The spiral arms and structure becomes visible clearly in this processed image with a distortion nearly equivalent to a change of the observer location from our galaxy to a point in the void intergalactic space just above M31.

The original image from which this perspective has been obtained was a 4 minutes exposure with a 300mm telephoto lens and a DSLR Canon EOS 450d (Rebel XTi) camera.