This in itself is astounding, but it is also astounding that we have been privileged to gaze over a chasm so wide that an aggregation of millions of suns looks no more to our eyes than a misty spot of light. Dr. Edwin Hubble, of the Mount Wilson observatory in California, has recently made the discovery that the more distant spiral nebulæ may also be resolved into stars. Dr. Hubble made his investigations photographically with the 60-inch and 100-inch telescopes. Although most of the spiral nebulæ appear very small because they are at least a million light years distant, the nebula of Andromeda is comparatively close, its apparent diameter being about six times the diameter of the moon.
This famous nebula may be most easily located when near the zenith during the latter part of October. Watch for it just after the star Alpheratz, on the head of Andromeda, has passed the meridian and started toward the west.
THE GREAT NEBULA OF ANDROMEDA.
Photograph by Yerkes Observatory through the 40-inch refracting telescope.
To the unaided eye, it appears as a small mass of faint light and inexperienced observers often mistake it for a comet. Although this mass of light may be considered as being comparatively close compared to other spiral nebula, it is scarcely like sighting a ship at sea, for so far away does the spiral of Andromeda lie, that a ray of light must travel at least 36,000 years in order to reach the earth—36,000 years with light traveling 186,000 miles a second!
PEGASUS, THE FLYING HORSE