Star watchers - if Andromeda were brighter

[pdq]

Another gorgeous pic.

[pdq]

FWIW, I think Andromeda looks "closer" to the Milky Way (and us) than the moon is to earth:





Not really, obviously (the distance is vastly greater) but considering the scale of the two galaxies, they seem closer (and are in fact slowly getting closer, while the moon is moving away).

Edit: ...which is to say, Andromeda is 25 Milky-Way-diameters away from us, while the moon is more like 30 earth-diameters from us.

[DP]

I thought if I ever had a band I'd name it The Local Group.