Mirach
Legacy Name: Mirach

"Mirach is a red giant star in the constellation Andromeda. At 197 light years away, it is the 56th brightest star in the Earth's sky, where it shines at an apparent visual magnitude of 2.07. Mirach is the primary component of a multiple-star system. The iron abundance of Mirach is -0.03 (93.3% of the Sun). It is moving through the Galaxy at a speed of 59.6 km/s relative to the Sun. Its projected Galactic orbit carries it between 14,900 and 24,800 light years from the center of the Galaxy."

The star Mirach in the constellation Andromeda also acts as the guide star to three different galaxies: M31 (Andromeda galaxy), M33 (Triangulum galaxy), and NGC 404.

The legend of the constellation Andromeda:
Though today we know of Andromeda as a galaxy, as the Andromeda Nebula, or as the Andromeda constellation located near the Milky Way. Andromeda had the misfortune to be the daughter of the vain Cassiopeia, wife of King Cepheus of Ethiopia.

In Greek mythology, beautiful daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia of Joppa in Palestine (called Ethiopia) and wife of Perseus. Cassiopeia offended the Nereids by boasting that Andromeda was more beautiful than they, so in revenge Poseidon sent a sea monster to devastate Cepheus’ kingdom. Since only Andromeda’s sacrifice would appease the gods, she was chained to a rock and left to be devoured by the monster. Perseus flew by on the winged horse Pegasus, fell in love with Andromeda, and asked Cepheus for her hand. Cepheus agreed, and Perseus slew the monster. At their marriage feast, however, Andromeda’s uncle, Phineus, to whom she had originally been promised, tried to claim her. Perseus turned him to stone with Medusa’s head. Andromeda bore Perseus six sons and a daughter.

"The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way and is one of a few galaxies that can be seen unaided from the Earth. In approximately 4.5 billion years the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are expected to collide and the result will be a giant elliptical galaxy. Andromeda is accompanied by 14 dwarf galaxies, including M32, M110, and possibly M33 (The Triangulum Galaxy)."

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is located 2.5 million light years from our own Milky Way. The Andromeda galaxy appears as a long, hazy patch in the sky.

The visible fuzzy patch of stars stretches about as long as the width of the full moon, and half as wide; only with significant magnification can you tell it stretches six times that length in fullness.

A spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, Andromeda contains a concentrated bulge of matter in the middle, surrounded by a disk of gas, dust, and stars 260,000 light-years long, more than 2.5 times as long as the Milky Way. Though Andromeda contains approximately a trillion stars to the quarter to half a billion in the Milky Way, our galaxy is actually more massive, because it is thought to contain more dark matter.

Photo's of the Andromeda galaxy can be found on the Hubble site and the SPACE website,
Here
And Here

- Information came from Ashland Astronomy Studio, Constellations of Words, EarthSky, and information on Andromeda came from space-facts, SPACE, encyclopaedia britannica and About.