![]() ![]() Useyour lowest power the full extent of the galaxy is huge - fivetimes as large as the full moon. ![]() ![]() Through a telescope the Andromeda Galaxy looks quite diffuse. As noted above, the galaxy looks like a dim, fuzzy starto the naked eye, and like a small elliptical cloud in binoculars.The diagram below show the situation as Pegasus and Andromeda rise inthe east. The galaxy is just above and to the right of thisthird star. Then, starting from this star, countacross three stars. To find the galaxy start at Andromeda's head and count three starsalong the lower curved line. Her feet open out in twocurved lines (like a girl's skirt) extending back under Cassiopeia.(Cassiopeia was Andromeda's mother.) The star of the Great Square of Pegasusclosest to Cassiopeia, Alpheratz, is shared between Andromeda andPegasus. The chair may be upsidedown in the sky, but look in the direction away from the bottom ofthe chair in the sky (not necessarily down towards the horizon) tolocate the Great Square of Pegasus.Ĭonstellations are like state maps every star is in oneconstellation or another, but a few stars are (unofficially) sharedbetween constellations. If you add one more star to the "W" of Cassiopeia, you get a chairshape with an uncomfortable looking back. Cassiopeiais a W-shaped circumpolar constellation approximately opposite theBig Dipper across the North star. To find the galaxy, locate the NorthStar, and then locate the constellation of Cassiopeia. The galaxy passes high overhead during the fall of the NorthernTemperate Zone of the Earth, crossing the top of the sky aboutmidnight in mid October, and two hours earlier each month thereafter.It is fully visible in early evening, rising in the east inSeptember, until it begins to set in the west into the eveningtwilight in February. With binoculars you can clearly see theelliptical shape of the galaxy. It is visible as adim, fuzzy star from a dark sky site. The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object you can see withyour naked eyes, two million light years away. ![]()
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