The Andromeda Galaxy M31 (mag 3.4) will be well placed in the evening sky in coming weeks. On 1 October it will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time, and on subsequent evenings it will culminate four minutes earlier each day.
From Columbus , it is visible all night. It will become visible at around 20:14 (EST), 33° above your north-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 01:29, 88° above your northern horizon. It will be lost to dawn twilight at around 06:24, 35° above your north-western horizon.
At a declination of 41°16'N, it is easiest to see from the northern hemisphere but cannot be seen from latitudes much south of 28°S.
At magnitude 3.4, M31 is tricky to make out with the naked eye except from a dark site, but is visible through a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
The position of M31 is as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| M31 | 00h42m40s | 41°16'N | Andromeda | 3.4 | 0'00" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 2 Oct 2016
| The sky on 2 October 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 1 day old |
All times shown in EDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
© Digitised Sky Survey (DSS); Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)