| Observing the Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object you can see with your naked eyes, two million light years away. It is visible as a dim, fuzzy star from a dark sky site . With binoculars you can clearly see the elliptical shape of the galaxy. The galaxy passes high overhead during the fall of the Northern Temperate Zone of the Earth, crossing the top of the sky about midnight in mid October, and two hours earlier each month thereafter. It is fully visible in early evening, rising in the east in September, until it begins to set in the west into the evening twilight in February. To find the galaxy locate the North Star , and then locate the constellation of Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is a W-shaped circumpolar constellation approximately opposite the Big Dipper across the North star. If you add one more star to the "W" of Cassiopeia, you get a chair shape with an uncomfortable looking back. The chair may be upside down in the sky, but look in the direction away from the bottom of the chair in the sky (not necessarily down towards the horizon) to locate the Great Square of Pegasus. Constellations are like state maps; every star is in one constellation or another, but a few stars are (unofficially) shared between constellations . The star of the Great Square of Pegasus closest to Cassiopeia, Alpheratz, is shared between Andromeda and Pegasus. This star is the head of Andromeda. Her feet open out in two curved lines (like a girl's skirt) extending back under Cassiopeia. (Cassiopeia was Andromeda's mother.) | |
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