The stars on night watch have been so bright, especially the last 2 nights as we've had no moon.
We have found the great spiral of the Andromeda Galaxy, our closest neighbouring galaxy. It's just visible with the naked eye, but with binoculars you can see an elliptical smudge of brightness, quite different from the stars we see around it. It lies between Cassiopea and Pegasus ( see Bridget's diagram).
The Andromeda Galaxy is 2 million light years away. That means that the light we are seeing from it left Andromeda 2 million years ago, and it has taken that long for it to reach us here on earth. That's a mind boggling long way away!