h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure it's called the M32 in the Messier catalogue, if I'm wrong feel free to say

Right, well I live in London so, as you can imagine, I do not get much oppertunity to have a good glimpse of the night sky. I can however, see some of the brighter constellations, and when I get the chance to go to my mothers in kent get to see some star clusters like the pleaides (or seven sisters as its fondly called). Last year I went on holiday to Northfolk, which boasts some of the darkest skies in the UK, and was able, for the first time, to look at the M32 galaxy through my binoculars. To anyone who doesn't know what it is, it looks like nothing more than a smudge in the sky, but in fact M32 is one of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way. I also enjoyed seeing the stars in our Galaxy stretching across the sky. I plan to go back to Northfolk this summer and stay at an astronomy b&b which I found a leaflet for in Astronomy Now. For anyone who might be interested, the sky at night web site is quite interesting http://www.bbc.co.uk/space

Hi there,

Yes it was a small mistake. I think the Galaxy's number is actually M31. Unfortunately the error was not caught before the article made it into the edited guide, and as we have found, it is quite difficult to update articles once they reach the edited guide. We are currently working on a new edited guide updating scheme, and as soon as it is in place this mistake will be the first on my list of changes.

Thanks a lot!

Woodpigeon

I saw andromeda two nights ago through a pair of 20 x 80 bino's. It was fantastic and broke my deep sky duck. Next I want to look for M8 in the south.