p-d-ball t1_jdtr8lj wrote
Reply to comment by thesadunicorn in Everyone talks about how huge Andromeda will look in the sky billions of years from now. I present you what the Milky Way *currently* looks like in the skies of our neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud. We appear absolutely huge in their skies! [Simulated view] by lampiaio
Wow, I'm kinda bummed we can't see it like that.
RoastedRhino t1_jdva5rd wrote
It's still much bigger than people think.
We were on a group retreat and I convinced by office mates to look at the sky (we were next to a glacier in one of the darkest skies I have ever seen) and Andromeda is big! The general comment by everybody was "I thought it was something you cannot see without a telescope, or something tiny that you need to enlarge to see". But it's actually a big object in the sky!
p-d-ball t1_jdvdyej wrote
That's awesome! I'll definitely have to look for it.
canadave_nyc t1_jdvfye7 wrote
You can barely see Andromeda as a small ghostly pale splotch with the naked eye in a very dark sky. A slightly more resolved splotch if you use binoculars (you can see the centre splotch plus hazy oval splotch around it). It will be nothing like the well-defined colourful galaxy you see in photos. Just FYI :)
p-d-ball t1_jdvgqr6 wrote
Ah, ok. Thank you for the info!
canadave_nyc t1_jdvmzaq wrote
You're welcome. Here's kind of what it looks like in actuality (although even this photo shows it brighter than it actually is--the stars in the photo, for example, are brighter than they'd appear even at a very dark-sky site): https://p1-tt.byteimg.com/origin/pgc-image/26a4289388a84090929e80b9fcbc930b.jpg
It really just looks like a small very faint hard-to-find fuzzy ball to the naked eye in real life.
killinghorizon t1_je1oawv wrote
The link seems to be broken.
canadave_nyc t1_je2jitd wrote
Hmmm, that's odd--I tested it and it was broken for me too, but I just tried again and it seems to be working. Maybe it was temporarily down?
Laxziy t1_jdxjbzl wrote
It’s still a beautiful splotch tho
GraveSlayer726 t1_je0h7s7 wrote
really makes you realize the absurd scale of galaxies, even being so far away andromeda can still take up a tremendous amount of space in the sky, i hope i can go someone with little to no light pollution one day to see it
sciguy52 t1_jdu7dt9 wrote
Well you can, just need more help than just your eyes. Hence the telescopes. But it would be really need to see in the sky if you could see it with eyes alone.
MannyVanHorne t1_jdvhg0j wrote
Dude, obviously. What did you think he meant?
junktrunk909 t1_jdv9y4t wrote
It's relatively easy and affordable to get equipment that'll let you see it like that
[deleted] t1_jdv10qb wrote
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