Thank you for those beautiful illustrations. Andromeda would be a magnificent sight, if only our eyes were sensitive enough to see its whole size.
I remember when I would look up and study the sky as a child and teenager (something I spent hours doing) I did notice a few things that looked like clouds, or “smudges,” but that definitely weren’t clouds because they were visible on perfectly clear nights. I’m pretty sure those must have been galaxies, but I didn’t know enough about practical astronomy to realize it at the time. Probably I was seeing Andromeda, because it is visible year-round where I live.
Back then my eyesight was far better than it is today, of course, I was often able to spot satellites moving rapidly and silently across the sky, seemingly ten times as fast as the high-flying jets that I loved to watch, with their flashing strobe lights and sometimes just-barely-audible whispering sound.
How I wish my eyes could still be that good.
Unless you are in one of the few and rapidly disappearing spots on earth still unaffected by light pollution, those days are gone.
Too many morons throwing up million watt equivalent floodlights around their house they leave on all night while they are inside sleeping and watching TV.