M31 is out there, beyond understood boundaries

Finding the Andromeda galaxy, M31
The "Andromeda Galaxy M31" can just, but only just, be seen with the naked eye.

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Its light, 2.2 million years old.

This is the oldest light you can see with the unaided eye. The light you see no longer exists within M31. The Andromeda galaxy, M31, is the nearest neighbour large galaxy to our own Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is about 2.2 million light years away and about 100 000 light years across. Some directions on where the w is begin by first facing north. Somewhere up there by the North Star is the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. It will be to the right of the Pole Star. You may be able to see that Cassiopeia lies right in the path of the Milky Way as it crosses the sky. If you can, remind yourself that you are looking from the inside at our Galaxy and this is outside. Identify the larger and deeper of the two triangles which make up the W of Cassiopeia. It is the top one of the two. The triangle points to the right. Follow a line through the middle of the triangle, to look for M31. ( The third dot connected from left to right is the top of a W. It points to the small dot which is M31. Looking through binoculars in about the right place, you should pick up a hazy white glow. That’s the central bright region of the galaxy. Remind yourself how old the light is that you are seeing.

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What you see if you find this small white gloss is a galaxy that has more than a trillion stars. The light you will be looking at left that galaxy 2.2 million years ago. It is the oldest light that the human eye can see without the help of a telescope.

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When you look and think about this place in the sky and the light from the past it is hard to know what to think. How far can emotion or thought or experience or understanding go in understanding or does it stretch our soul to imagine and the depth and breadth of our feelings and sight? We all wonder this in different ways. Sometimes we express simple thoughts in ways that reflect what is unclear but felt, as did Elizabeth Barrett Browning in some simple thoughts. For here love is beyond the ends of being, with boundaries difficult to measure.......................................................

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I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need,

by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely,

as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely,

as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion

put to use In my old grief’s,

and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints;

I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!

and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death