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Andromeda Galaxy??

Always Free

Critical Thinker
Always Free
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
406
Who has viewed this galaxy unaided by binochs or telescope? Is it easy to see with naked eye or just too distant to bother?

If it is clearly visible, how would you describe it?

It's summer time here so I think it is still too light out to see it when it's above us. :)
 
Look what I found googling for just SIX SECONDS!

Visible to the naked eye even under moderate conditions,
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m31.jpg


(It doesn't look like that to the naked eye ;) )

regards,
BillyJoe.
 
Under reasonable viewing conditions, the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen as a hazy oblong light patch, its length is roughly 1/5 of the diameter of the moon. It is not usually visible in city areas, except on very clear nights.

Hans
 
Hey Billy Joe, I could have found that picture in my book on the book shelf but I'm buggered if I could find a picture of what I ASKED FOR on google. LOL!

Thanks MRC_Hans, that's exactly the kind of description I was asking for;)
 
When I lived out in the High desert of Southern California, Andromeda was easily naked eye visible.

Now that I live in the Dallas, TX area, I haven't seen it in years.

The angular size of Andromeda as seen from Earth is about 3 degrees.

The angular size of the Moon is about 0.5 degrees. As you can see from this, Andromeda is roughly 6 times the visual size of the moon, but this doesn't tell the whole story. Without at least binocs to increase the light gathering power of my eyes, I generally only see the brightest middle third of Andromeda. The impression I am left with is a dim oval smudge that looks about as wide as the moon or a bit wider. Seeing the center 1/3 of Andromeda should be about twice as wide as the moon visually by the math. Subjectively, it never looked quite that wide to me.

One of the most amazing sights I have ever seen was Andromeda through a 24 inch dob scope someone brought out to a star party in Joshua Tree National Park (it was a National Monument then). With that many inches of objective and a very low magnification eyepiece, Andromeda was stunning. Even with the lowest power eyepiece the guy had, the scope had to be mvoed about a bit to see the whole thing. It was too large to fit in one field of view.
 
I'm pretty sure I saw it from my folks' home as a teenager back in the mid 70s, before the introduction of sodium street lights wiped out all viewing. I recall a very faint and very small patch, easy to lose if looked at directly, bigger, but very much fainter than any of the visible planets. (I have never definitely seen Mercury).

I was seeing it in the northern half of the sky from 56 degN latitude. Cassiopeia was the nearest easily recognisable constellation, and I think Pegasus.(I may be remembering wrongly. It's many years since I did any astronomy). If it's summer where you are, AF, are you sure it's visible at all? I assume you must be way south.

The Magellanic clouds might be a more accessible target.
 
Some years ago I checked the Guiness Book of World Records and the Andromeda Galaxy was listed as the most distant object (2.2 million ly) that one could see with the naked eye.

Can anyone validate this item?

Sorry, but I do not have a current copy of the book.
 
Crossbow said:
Some years ago I checked the Guiness Book of World Records and the Andromeda Galaxy was listed as the most distant object (2.2 million ly) that one could see with the naked eye.

Can anyone validate this item?

Sorry, but I do not have a current copy of the book.
Click to expand...

Hows this?

http://www.ipinc.net/~paullund/distant.htm

This indicates 2.3 million ly, close enough if you ask me.
 
Andromeda is one of the first thing I look up at night sky when I'm visiting my folks. With almost no light pollution the scenery is spectacular.

Crossbow, scotth:

I knew I had read an article where someone had seen even more distant object than Andromeda. And sure enough, google found it. Not something you can see just like that, but I think it deserves a mention.

From here

M81, one of the great showpiece galaxies in the northern sky, is a grand-design spiral that forms a physical pair with irregular galaxy M82.

With a visual magnitude of 6.8, M81 is probably the farthest object ever seen with the unaided eye at a distance of 12 million light years.

Although this is a most difficult observation, it has been reported on several occasions, particularly by Brian Skiff of Lowell Observatory. He reported glimpsing it as a "threshold" object, detected only 5-10 percent of the time with optimally adapted averted vision under very dark skies at Anderson Mesa where stars down to magnitude 7.9 were visible to the unaided eye. This is no mean feat.
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Hominoidea said:
Andromeda is one of the first thing I look up at night sky when I'm visiting my folks. With almost no light pollution the scenery is spectacular.
Click to expand...
Which is one of those good news, bad news messages. Actually double bad news. Hominoidea is in Finland and almost no light pollution. Don't know about your light pollution but if it's summer where you're at you're a long way from Finland, and Andromeda is pretty far north. You probably need to be able to see Cassiopeia, and the Great Square to see Andromeda (M31). The Great Square has 2 arms coming off it that arc toward Cassiopeia. Andromeda is just off the arm that is closest to Cassiopeia about 2/3rds out the arm. The larger triangle of Cassiopeia points almost directly at M31.

Every year I camp out in the Chihuahua Desert for a couple of weeks over the Xmas holidaze. To see Andromeda with the naked eye it needs to be really clear or you have to know exactly where to look. But if it's clear enough it also means the milky way is brilliant. Once you find it it's incredible, because that one little fuzzy disk is equivalent to everything else you can see! It really helps put things in perspective.
That's the good news.
 
Always Free said:
Hey Billy Joe, I could have found that picture in my book on the book shelf but I'm buggered if I could find a picture of what I ASKED FOR on google. LOL!
Click to expand...
But I was answering your second question.....
Always Free said:
Is it easy to see with naked eye or just too distant to bother?
Click to expand...
But it's okay, I wasn't expecting any thanks for my six second effort :cool: .
Perhaps I should have quoted your second question to make it clear :rolleyes: .

The picture was just a bonus - and it did come with an appropriate comment to make it crystal clear that I wasn't answering your other question.
Oh well.
 
BJ I do appreciate the effort but I thought you misunderstood what I was asking.

I was only wanting to know a naked eye description of this galaxy. To see if it was worth viewing without aids. But it still is a loverly pic;)
 
AF- just curiosity, but this has bugged me all week. What latitude are you on? Seems to me that M31 is way too far north for you to see right now from the southern hemisphere, (where it is summer right now).
 
The best view I've had of Andomeda was sitting in a lounge chair on Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman around new years eve, early 1980s. I picked it up with just my eyes, and then found it with binocs. Didn't know what it was, but I happened to have a planisphere along on our family trip and IDd pretty easily. Here in Michigan, it's in the sky in the late evening in winter.

did
 
- again, a winter observation from what - about 20 degrees north?(I may be a bit off on that). I'm curious about how far south M31 can actually be seen.
It's pretty faint unless you are well away from light pollution: the further south we go, the closer it gets to the horizon, where faint objects are easy to lose in haze.
AF said it's summer right now, so I'm assuming he is probably in S.Africa or further south. (OZ/ NZ ?) It might be a very hard object to find unless he knows exactly where to look, obviously depending on his location and observation conditions. Maybe it's permanently below his effective horizon.
So far as I can see, all the reported sightings here are from the northern hemisphere. We may be providing misleading data. Depends on where AF is based.
Anyone here who has definitely observed it (naked eye or optics) from the southern hemisphere? What's the most southerly sighting we have?
 
Follow up to the above. Remote viewing indicates AF is probably in Melbourne. Consultation with the Bad Astronomer (facts his, errors mine) suggests M31 will be at max 14 degrees above the horizon at that latitude. So possible to see , (but I suspect very hard in town).
 
Soapy Sam said:
.... Remote viewing indicates AF is probably in Melbourne.
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Yes (see "The perfect Reply" in Banter), Always Free lives in Noble Park, a suburb of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia)

Soapy Sam said:
....M31 will be at max 14 degrees above the horizon at that latitude. So possible to see , (but I suspect very hard in town).
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Well, I live in the outer fringes of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne where gardens give way to bush.
In what direction exactly should I look?

thanks,
BillyJoe.
 
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