{"id":2149,"date":"2010-10-25T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T12:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2020-08-20T19:32:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T00:32:27","slug":"finding-the-andromeda-galaxy-aka-m31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2010\/finding-the-andromeda-galaxy-aka-m31","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a bit of astronomical lore I picked up a few years ago. I learned the sky at summer camp; I have looked through numerous telescopes over the years; I even took an astronomy class in college\u2014but no one ever pointed out the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andromeda_Galaxy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andromeda Galaxy<\/a> (the most distant and largest object we can see with our naked eyes!). So I invented my own way to find it using the triangle in <strong>Cassiopeia<\/strong> as my pointer. This is a great target for binoculars!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8700\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/finding-andromeda-dark.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"705\" height=\"684\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/finding-andromeda-dark.png 705w, https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/finding-andromeda-dark-150x146.png 150w, https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/finding-andromeda-dark-258x250.png 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We are somewhat spoiled by all the great astronomical photography out there. Once you find it, Andromeda is a dim, fuzzy snowball with a halo. But consider these facts: it is <strong>2.5 million light years away<\/strong>, it is <strong>220,000&nbsp;light years across<\/strong>, and it contains over <strong>one trillion stars<\/strong>! Now go back and think about what you are seeing. It is so huge that even at that distance it is much larger than anything else in the night sky save the moon!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2152\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2152\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/andromeda-galaxy.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2152 \" title=\"andromeda-galaxy\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/andromeda-galaxy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"322\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/andromeda-galaxy.jpg 800w, https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/andromeda-galaxy-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/andromeda-galaxy-372x250.jpg 372w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 85vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2152\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Vedran Vrhovac<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a bit of astronomical lore I picked up a few years ago. I learned the sky at summer camp; I have looked through numerous telescopes over the years; I even took an astronomy class in college\u2014but no one ever pointed out the Andromeda Galaxy (the most distant and largest object we can see with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2010\/finding-the-andromeda-galaxy-aka-m31\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Finding the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8702,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/8702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}