Andromeda Galaxy
Andromeda Galaxy is the closest independent galaxy to the Milky Way at only 2.5 million light years away. It is simultaneously the largest and most distant object any unaided human eye will ever see – unless you know somebody with exceptional good transportation. This means if your sky is dark enough, you don’t even need the assistance of a telescope to detect Andromeda. If you can find the constellation Cassiopeia which is almost always in the northern sky (while in the northern hemisphere) due to its circumpolar location (rotating close to the North Pole), you can find this gray disc-shaped smudge in a dark night sky. First note that Cassiopeia, the letter W or M looking constellation, depending on whether it’s above or below Polaris, is a little lopsided. Before we go looking for the galaxy you need to know some Hawaiian first. Make a fist but leave you thumb and little outstretched as far you can. This gesture is called the shaka and if you point it to the sky as far as you arm can reach, it measures 25 degrees, thumb-tip to “pinky”-tip. Say “Hang lose bruh!” if you need to, but now you are ready to find that galaxy. Start with the more symmetrical and deeper half of Cassiopeia and bisect that V-shape, drawing your line through the apex, continuing on for one hang-loose gesture. There you’ll find the little smudge of Andromeda.
That smudge is only the galaxy’s core. If you could see the whole galaxy, it would be six full moons in diameter across the sky. The “arms” that form the rest of Andromeda’s disc are too faint for the human eye. They are also invisible to most telescopes because they get hidden behind the glare of that bright core. This problem of contrast ratios is routinely experienced when driving on a dark highway (as they ALL should be). Nothing can be seen of an oncoming vehicle itself due to the brightness of their headlights shining in your eyes.
In a BIG telescope with a wide field of view, you have extra darkness on the margins of the eyepiece, creating a more gradual contrast, you can see the whole galaxy! Andromeda’s core is surrounded with two ringlets of galactic arms, recognizable by their central black ribbons of lumpy darkness. Normally, galactic arms take on a spiral pattern as they extend into the core. It’s assumed that Andromeda lost her figure-skater figure after having adsorbed another large galaxy or two. What’s known for certain, and nobody can do anything about it, is that she is coming for us next.
She is even bigger than our galaxy and we are on a convergent course with a closing velocity of ~180,000 miles per hour. Don't worry, Andromeda will never in your lifetime appear as big in the sky as it will in this art hanging on your wall. That's because even at that phenomenal speed, it will be 4 billion years before our galaxies start to merge -- plenty of time to amass a collection of Dark Ranger Telescope Astro Art.