This month’s star chart shows the eastern sky at 9:30 PM on Saturday, October 17, featuring some things you can see with the naked eye and binoculars.  Saturn is about 24 deg above the eastern horizon, and Jupiter is well placed in the east-southeast about 45 deg above the horizon.  A pair of binoculars in a pair of steady hands will allow you to see the rings of Saturn, and will readily show you the Galilean moons of Jupiter if you,re steady enough.  Lean against a tree – if
you can find one.

The Andromeda Galaxy is about 49 deg above the horizon in the east-northeast between Cassiopeia and the Great Square of Pegasus, shown in heavy gray lines.  Follow the gray line from Beta Andromedae through the dim stars Mu and Nu Andromedae to the upper left.  The galaxy is about 1 deg above Nu.

The galaxy is about 2.9 million light years away, and is the farthest object visible to the naked eye.  I have read that one or two more distant galaxies are sometimes visible to the unaided eye under some special conditions, at very high elevations, for example.  But Andromeda is reliably visible under rather ordinary conditions, if you know where to look.  Do you suppose there’s anyone up there looking back at us?