See How Andromeda Would Look if It Were Brighter

[George K]

Hi everyone. The next link shows how the Andromeda should look like (from the Earth's surface) if its stars were much more brighter than they are (or if we could have a super-vision).
http://www.iflscience.com/space/what-andromeda-would-look-night-if-it-were-brighter
It seems so amazing as I couldn't even imagine how close the Andromeda is to us.
However, I'd like to verify this info (as I don't know the credibility of this site).
What's your opinion? Do you agree with this image?

 

[rootone]

It looks reasonable to me, but I don't know if this an 'artists impression', or has somebody processed a real photo with the pixel brightness exaggerated,
Either way it's art rather than actual science, I like it though, and I wouldn't say it's misleading

 

[George Jones]

This seems reasonable to me. The Moon's actual image is a lot smaller than image that most of us have in our mind's eye. The full moon only subtends about 1/2 of a degree, and Andromeda is a few degrees in image size.

Are you familiar with the two stars (separated by 5 1/2 degrees) in the Big Dipper that point to the North Star? On moonless nights I sometimes ask friends "How many full moons will fit between those two stars?" A typical response is "about four", which isn't close to the correct answer, "eleven." When we can't see the Moon, we think the Moon is bigger than it actually is.

 

[George K]

It looks reasonable to me, but I don't know if this an 'artists impression', or has somebody processed a real photo with the pixel brightness exaggerated,
Either way it's art rather than actual science, I like it though, and I wouldn't say it's misleading

If you read the text you'll see that the artist took a typical image of Andromeda and added it to the original photo, but in an appropriate scale (i.e. 3 times wider than the moon is).

 

[rootone]

Yes, I discovered that after my previous post, it seems to be a pretty good idea for a way of doing this image with fair accuracy.

 

[davenn]

It looks reasonable to me, but I don't know if this an 'artists impression'

a complete artists impression of the galaxy ... it looks nothing like that through a scope

 

[russ_watters]

a complete artists impression of the galaxy ... it looks nothing like that through a scope

Yes, it looks nothing like that through a scope with your eyes, but it looks like a photo to me.

 

[George K]

Yes, it looks nothing like that through a scope with your eyes, but it looks like a photo to me.

I think that the artist used this photo:
http://www.universetoday.com/30289/andromeda-galaxy/
This photo is just flipped, rotated and scaled. (I can't find how this Andromeda's photo has been produced but it seems to be a combination of different captures through a telescope, as the several "circles of views" depict.)