Mythic galaxy 121 EP

Andromeda Galaxy

RA 10.6848° · Dec 41.2691° · openngc

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Score breakdown

· 9 badges

121 pts · Mythic

Mythic Top tier reached ✦

The Andromeda Galaxy +40
Galaxy +14
Bright enough for the unaided eye +14
Messier object +12
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon +12
Coming towards us +10
Has a proper name +8
Bright deep-sky object +6
Spiral galaxy +5

Total score 121

Badges

Galaxy · +14
Messier object · +12
Bright deep-sky object · +6
Has a proper name · +8
Spiral galaxy · +5
Bigger on the sky than the full Moon · +12
Coming towards us · +10
Bright enough for the unaided eye · +14
The Andromeda Galaxy · +40

Trivia

Hard to believe

Messier object. One of the 110 showpieces of the Messier list — catalogued as M31.

What it actually is

What it actually is. A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.
Spiral. A spiral galaxy. Those arms are not solid structures but traffic jams — density waves that stars drift into and out of as they orbit.

Sense of scale

Scale. Home to hundreds of billions of stars — a universe unto itself, and every one of those points of light could have planets.

Find it in the sky

How to spot it. At magnitude 3.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Andromeda.
Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around September — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

Its true colour. Its colour is a census: blue where gas is still collapsing into hot young stars, yellow-red in the old, settled core.

Properties

constellation: And
dso type: G
hubble: Sb
mag: 3.44
messier: yes
messier number: 031
name: Andromeda Galaxy
named: yes
radial velocity kms: -300
size arcmin: 177.83
surface brightness: 23.63

Nearby objects

About Andromeda Galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy is a mythic galaxy. It sits in the constellation And and shines at apparent magnitude 3.44.

A galaxy: a gravitationally bound city of stars, gas and dark matter, turning so slowly that a single rotation takes hundreds of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for Andromeda Galaxy in the constellation And. At apparent magnitude 3.44, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Andromeda Galaxy is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why Andromeda Galaxy is a mythic galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy scores 121 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the mythic tier.

That score comes from 9 science badges — Galaxy, Messier object, Bright deep-sky object, Has a proper name, Spiral galaxy, Bigger on the sky than the full Moon, Coming towards us and Bright enough for the unaided eye — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.