Andromeda - Princess, and daughter of Cassiopeia
Pronounced "And - Rom - Eh - Da"
Where to find the constellation
Constellation Chart
The beautiful Princess Andromeda, rescued by the hero Perseus, when her mother and father, Queen Cassiopeia, and King Cepheus tried to sacrifice her to the sea-beast.
The real showpiece object here is the Great Andromeda Galaxy, M31 - Even larger than our own Milky Way galaxy, and also the closest major galaxy to us, means it is enormous through the eyepiece.
Much larger than the full-Moon, but this means that it's light is also very diffuse, making it only a naked-eye object from a reasonably dark site - however, almost any binoculars will show at least it's bright central core.
From a very dark site, in October 2006, this thing almost filled the field of view through my 15x70 binoculars.
M32 and M110, are two small 'satellite' oval galaxies of M31 - also possible to see with binocs.
Two smaller galaxies, ngc404 and ngc891, are possible to see with beginner's equipment - two open clusters, one of them very large - the 'Blue Snowball' planetary nebula - and the striking, colourful double star Almach.
M31
A HUGE object - much larger than the field of view used for all the other Messier objects
and here it is (portion) to same scale as other Messiers listed here
M32
Brighter of M31's two satellite galaxies
M110
Larger, but dimmer , of M31's satellite galaxies
ngc404
Small, dim galaxy. A REAL challenge for amateur scopes, mainly because it is nestled so close to the bright star Mirach (for this reason, it also gets called 'Mirach's Ghost')
The glare from Mirach makes it really difficult to pick this one out visually.
ngc891
Very nice edge-on galaxy - quite widee too, but because it's so wide, it's light is spread out, making it also very diffuse.
Larger aoerture, or dark sky required
ngc752
Very large, spread-out open cluster. Reasonably bright, but again, it's so spread out that it is very diffuse - about 60 stars, brightest of which is around 9th magnitude.
ngc7686
Moderate-sized open cluster - visible in binoculars - easy in almost any telescope
ngc7662
The Blue Snowball - small, but fairly bright planetary nebula - will look like an out of focus star until you crank up the magnification - blue colour only really shows up in photographs.
Almach
Very nice colour-contrasting double star - similar colours to Albireo, but a tighter split.
Yellow, mag 2.3 - Blue, mag 5 - seperation 10 arcsec
Andromeda NGCs (with magnitudes) - from my own "1200 Northern NGCs" list
For those with 'GoTo' or a good chart
205 - Gal - 7.9 (m110)
214 - Gal - 12.3
221 - Gal - 8.1 (m32)
224 - Gal - 3.4 (m31)
266 - Gal - 11.6
404 - Gal - 10.3
752 - OC - 5.7
812 - Gal - 11.2
891 - Gal - 9.9
7640 - Gal - 11.3
7662 - PN - 8
7686 - OC - 5.6
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