Andromeda Galaxy
The nearest large galaxy to our own, and the farthest thing most people can see with the eye alone.
Tonight from
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What it is
- Kind of object
- Galaxy
- Distance
- 2.54 million light years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 3.4, easy to see with the eye
- Size in the sky
- About 6 times the width of the full Moon
- Constellation
- Andromeda
- Catalogue
- M 31, NGC 224
Figures from OpenNGC, CC BY-SA 4.0; the SEDS Messier catalogue, via Wikipedia’s table of Messier objects, CC BY-SA 4.0. All sources
Near it in the sky
- Triangulum GalaxyA galaxy in Triangulum, about a fist away.
- Double ClusterAn open cluster in Perseus, about a hand span away.
- AlgolA blue-white main-sequence star in Perseus, about a hand span away.
- MirfakA yellow-white supergiant in Perseus, about a hand span away.
- M 39An open cluster in Cygnus, about two hand spans away.