3 - The Andromeda galaxy (M31)

Summary

Introduction

The great spiral in Andromeda is the most luminous member of the Local Group. The first known record of this object is by al-Sufi (903–986). M31 was first viewed through a telescope by Marius, who described it as looking “like a candle seen through a horn,” in 1612. The spiral nature of the Andromeda galaxy was first clearly shown in photographs obtained by Roberts (1887) with a 0.5-m reflector. Ritchey (1917) referred to these arms as “great streams of nebulous stars.” It is listed as object number 31 in Messier's catalog of nebulae. An atlas of finding charts for clusters, associations, variables, etc. in M31 has been published by Hodge (1981). Van den Bergh (1991b) has written a long review paper on this object. The monograph The Andromeda Galaxy by Hodge (1992) provides a detailed historical discussion of research on this object and an annotated bibliography for the period 1885–1950. A monograph entitled Tumannost Andromedy (The Andromeda Nebula) has been published by Sharov (1982).On the sky M31 covers an area of 92′ × 197′ (Holmberg 1958). This large angular size makes the Andromeda galaxy particularly suitable for detailed studies of its structure and stellar population content. De Vaucouleurs (1959b) has shown that the distribution of surface brightness I in spiral galaxies can often be decomposed into a spheroidal component in which I ∼ exp(–R^1/4) and an exponential disk in which I ∼ exp(–αR), where R is radial distance and α is a constant.