Distant friend

This is the time of year that you get to see the Andromeda Galaxy from Sydney. Just above the northern horizon for a couple of hours late at night. It's about a thousand times as far away as anything else you can see in this photo. It's just a faint little fuzzy thing with the naked eye, but you can in fact see it, and it's become an old friend of mine.

I was actually out observing the Orionid meteor shower. You're supposed to see lots of the things, bits of dust originating from Halleys Comet, burning up in the atmosphere. They appear to radiate out from the direction of the constellation Orion, hence the name Orionids. Maybe it's not a great year for Orionids. I only saw one in about twenty minutes of looking.

Also in the picture above are the Great Square of Pegasus and the Pleiades ('Seven Sisters').

British skies

While we're at it, here are some of the stars I grew up with, in the northern hemisphere sky. While it did rain just about every day I was in England, it nevertheless managed to clear up sometimes for spectacular starry night views.

 So here are the constellations of Perseus, Auriga, and Taurus, with its Pleiades and Hyades clusters. 

 Here are Cygnus, Lyra, and Cepheus, with the Milky Way running top to bottom.  


 




Cassiopeia, left of centre, Andromeda below it, and part of Pegasus. The Andromeda Galaxy is just visible as the faint, fuzzy patch at lower centre.

















A close up of part of Andromeda, with the galaxy easily visible.
 

I do like my northern hemisphere stars, even if our southern hemisphere ones are brighter and generally more spectacular.