Use Cassiopeia to find Andromeda galaxy
2 comments Print Me Email to FriendTonight is Wednesday, Nov 19 2008
David Smith of Michigan wrote, What is the easiest way to find the Andromeda galaxy at this time of year? I tried a couple times with my telescope, but had no luck.
Dave, we hope you’re not looking through the eyepiece of your telescope when sweeping through the sky for this galaxy. That would be hard. You need a wider field of view to spot the galaxy.
For starters, try scanning for the Andromeda galaxy with the unaided eye or binoculars. Some stargazers star-hop to it from the Great Square of Pegasus, as shown and described on yesterday’s chart. Others star-hop via the W-shaped constellation, Cassiopeia, shown on our chart today. Cassiopeia appears in the northeast sky at nightfall and swings high to the north as evening progresses. Note that one half of the W is more deeply notched than the other half. This deeper V is your “arrow” in the sky, pointing to the Andromeda galaxy.
On a dark night, this galaxy looks like a faint smudge of light. Once you’ve found it, try again with binoculars or your telescope. The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest large spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. It’s about 2.5 million light-years away, teeming with hundreds of billions of stars. Here’s a photo.
This is the coolest site. I just found it again ,the last time I was on this site was a year ago.
Thanks Keith! Come on back sooner next time!