The Great Square of Pegasus sparkles over your eastern horizon at early to mid evening. For some idea of the Great Square’s size, extend your hand an arm length from your eye. You’ll see that any two Great Square stars are farther apart than the width of your hand.
The Square of Pegasus is a great jumping off point for finding the famous Andromeda galaxy, also known to astronomers as M31. As seen from mid-northern latitudes, the Square of Pegasus looks like a baseball diamond whenever it resides in the eastern sky. Imagine the farthest star to the left – Alpheratz – as the third-base star. A line drawn from the first-base star through Alpheratz points in the general direction of the Andromeda galaxy.
If it’s dark enough, you’ll see two streamers of stars flying to the north (or left) of the star Alpheratz. To me, this grouping of stars looks like a bugle or a cornucopia. Along the bottom streamer, star-hop from Alpheratz to the star Mirach. Draw a line from Mirach through the upper streamer star, and go twice the distance. You’ve just located the Andromeda galaxy!
If you can’t see this fuzzy patch of light with the unaided eye, maybe your sky isn’t dark enough. Try binoculars! Don’t worry if you miss it tonight, for the Andromeda galaxy will be in the evening sky from now until spring.
More on M31: Great galaxy in Andromeda
I was looking for the Milky Way last night. I live in Lancaster, Pa. I looked in the Southern Sky as they told me to look. I was out around 9:00pm and 11:00 pm. It was a clear night. I did not know what I was looking for. I am a beginner at all of this. Can some one please tell me what I was supposed to look for ?
I live a few hundred miles south of you and if you look straight up and there’s not too much glare from streetlights, you should see a narrow, irregular band of light that looks like smoke. That’s the Milky Way. Also, there should be a very bright star almost straight overhead, that’s Vega. If you locate Vega, let your eye travel due west until you see another very bright star. That’s Arcturus. These are two of the most recognizable stars of the summer sky and easily located. Good luck and good viewing.
Do you ever look for the Space Station?
Download Stellarium – free program and search for Andromeda Galaxy – it will get you there
M31 serves as the threshold between a polluted city sky and a suburban “barely decent” sky, since it is close to 5 mag, in spite of the INCORRECT MAGNITUDE MEASUREMENT you’ll find in many sites, where they say it’s 3.5, which is utterly ridiculous, since in my polluted sky I’ve even seen naked eye some 4.9 stars, but I’ve never ever seen M31, not even using averted vision, that’s why which I’m sure it’s about 4.8 mag in reality.
Even the Orion nebula, which is 4.0 mag, can be seen super-clearly without optical aid in my polluted sky, and it looks big and clear with binos, whereas I can hardly see a foggy spot using them, with averted vision, when I try to see M31. Bottom line, in a polluted city sky where most of us live, the very best night is a 4.5 mag tops and it always occurs a couple of days before new moon. Close to M31 there’s a faint star, to its left if you look east, to its right if you look west. That star is 4.5 mag. The 1st time I looked for M31 I thought it was M31 itself, until I used my binoculars and I barely spotted M31 using averted vision. I wish only for one night all lights were out in my city during a cloudless clear night, to see M31, M33, lots of clusters and, most of all, the Milky Way. I have even DREAMED about seeing the Milky Way, that’s how bad I’d like to see it for the 1st time in my life!
hey guys, I’m not from USA, I’m from Croatia, and tonight, somewhere south-east I see a unusually bright star (dot) in the sky with naked. I read on the internet this afternoon that a supernova went off somewhere and it’ll be visible even with a binoculars for a few days. And the peak of the brightness would be about 3rd of 4th of september, which is now in just a few days. so I was wondering… did I see that supernova or what? I even took a photo with my cellphone (htc desire) and it was visible (for comparison: no star has ever been seen on any photo took with my cellphone, smart or stupidphone)
I was looking at Jupiter and her moons at 4:00am cdt, and I noticed a “blur” at about “5 oclock”, maybe 10 degrees. No other stars in the night sky appeared blurry so I assumed it is a galaxy. You don’t mention it so I am wondering what it is.