PSA: Stop labeling every widefield shot as 'Andromeda Galaxy' when it's clearly the Milky Way core

I've been in this sub for about 2 years now, and I keep seeing photos tagged as Andromeda (M31) that are obviously our own galaxy's core. How can you tell? The Milky Way core is hazy and angled with dark dust lanes running through it. Andromeda is a distinct tilted disk with a bright center, and it's actually smaller in the frame than people expect unless they used a long telephoto. I know it's tempting to name the bigger, prettiest object in the shot, but if you shot from a dark site in Arizona or Chile last month and it looked like a glowing river across the sky, that's the Milky Way, not M31. Andromeda is a separate fuzzy patch that fits about 3 full moons wide, not a band spanning 60 degrees. Is this just a labeling habit, or do people genuinely mix them up because they never checked a star chart first? I posted a comparison sketch from my own session in June, and it's night and day. Anyone else notice this mix-up going around the astro subs lately?

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simon_sanchez582d agoMost Upvoted

Guess everybody skipped the part where galaxies look different from star clouds.