What is the visual appearance of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) when resolved by a good telescope?
Answer
A bright, oblong smudge hinting at billions of stars.
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) represents one of the most distant objects typically accessible to amateur optical equipment. When successfully observed, even under skies suffering from light pollution, the galaxy does not resolve into individual stars through a standard eyepiece. Instead, the combined light of its billions of constituent stars aggregates to form a noticeable, somewhat elongated or oblong patch of light. This appearance is described as a smudge, yet it provides a profound hint of the massive, complex structure of this external island universe located far beyond the boundaries of our own Solar System.
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