✺ Andromeda Galaxy

  Andromeda Galaxy is a galaxy in Andromeda.

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  Type            Galaxy
  Constellation   Andromeda
  Magnitude       4.5
  Apparent size   178′ × 63′ (6× the full Moon)
  You need        binoculars, or naked eye if it is really dark

  Known as
  Messier         M31
  Dreyer          NGC 224

  Physical
  Distance        2.5 million light years
  Stars           about a trillion

  More information about Andromeda Galaxy

  Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. It spans six times the width
  of the full Moon, though only the bright core shows without optics. It
  is heading towards us and will merge with the Milky Way in about four
  billion years. Named for the constellation it sits in. Al-Sufi recorded
  it in 964 as a little cloud, which is the oldest surviving description
  of anything outside our own galaxy, written a thousand years before
  anyone knew what it was.

  History
  Discovered           964, Al-Sufi, who called it a little cloud
  First photographed   1888, Isaac Roberts

  Etymology
  From                 Greek
  Reading              Andromeda  ·  Ἀνδρομέδα
  Literally            ruler of men

  Messier was hunting comets. He compiled his list between 1758 and 1781
  as a register of things that look like comets but are not. That's why
  the objects on it have nothing in common beyond being fuzzy and staying
  put.

  Dreyer compiled the New General Catalogue in 1888, mostly from the
  sweeps William and John Herschel made of the sky, and numbered its 7,840
  objects in order of right ascension.

  where it is tonight:  skymap.sh/Andromeda Galaxy