PSA: People keep calling Andromeda a galaxy you can see with the naked eye from the city

I live outside Philly and I keep seeing posts saying you can spot Andromeda without gear from your backyard. No, you can't. I drove 45 minutes to Cherry Springs State Park with my 8 inch Dobsonian last fall and it was still a faint smudge. In town it's completely invisible unless you're under Bortle class 3 or darker. Am I the only one tired of seeing wrong info get upvoted?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wendy3d ago

Cherry Springs is Bortle 2 on a good night, and I still remember squinting at that faint little smudge for a solid minute before my eyes adjusted. @wesley_jones is right about it being a gray smudge from there, but the difference between that and trying from a typical suburb like mine is night and day, literally. Even from my backyard with a Bortle 6 sky, I can't make out the core of Andromeda with my naked eye, much less the whole galaxy. People don't realize how much light pollution washes out something that's already pretty faint to begin with. It's like telling someone you can see a candle flame from a mile away through a dirty window.

wesley_jones3d ago

Hold up, you can actually spot Andromeda from Cherry Springs even without the scope, it's just a faint gray smudge to the naked eye on a really clear night. The issue is people claiming they see it from their city balcony, which is just not happening unless the power grid goes down.

angela5873d agoProlific Poster

Count me as one who's tried from a Bortle 4 spot and still needed averted vision to even see that smudge.