How can it be a constellation and a galaxy?

If individual stars make up constellations (for example, andromeda), how can it be a galaxy as well (seeing as a the andromeda galaxy has more starts than our own)? Or is it not actually an individual star that makes up the constellation, but an entire galaxy that looks like a start?





Also, why is it so many starts we see at night are from other galaxies rather than our own? Does that have anything to do with our position in our galaxy?





Thanks|||the full name of the andromeda galaxy would be 'the M31 galaxy in andromeda'. M31 is its messier catalogue number, and it is in the constellation of andromeda. but astronomers know that constellations are just landmarks - patterns of stars that appear together as viewed from earth. the whole sky is divided up into a few dozen (I think 66) constellations, so that rather than quoting the coordinates of some celestial object, you can just say that it's "in andromeda" or "in scorpius" or whatever. constellations aren't real structures, but galaxies are. galaxies don't look like stars. since the andromeda galaxy is quite nearby (as galaxies go), it takes up rather a lot of sky, more than the full moon.|||It isn't both. The Andromeda galaxy is so named because it is found within the constellation "Andromeda", which is an imaginary "grouping" of stars, which have little or no relation to each other.





The "Crab Nebula" is named because it lies within the constellation Cancer, the Crab.





The stars you see when you look up at night are all members of our own galaxy. The unaided eye cannot make out individual stars in another galaxy, you need a powerful telescope for that. The only exception may be one of the Magellanic Clouds, the closest galaxies to our own, but they are only visible in the Southern Hemisphere.





Constellations, such as Orion, are only imaginary groupings of stars in the observer's mind. The individual stars can actually be thousands of light-years apart and have no realtion to the others. It is our line of sight, and our imaginations that make us see "patterns."|||The Andromeda Galaxy and the Andromeda Constellation are different things.





The Galaxy is named after the constellation, and the constellation is made up from stars in the galaxy.





It depends what time of year it is and where you live, but you should be able to see the constellation sometime. However, the galaxy itself you would not be able to see unless you are in a light pollution free area and maybe have at least some good binoculars.|||The Andromeda galaxy is named after the constellation Andromeda because it is found within it. They are two completely different things, however, just located in more or less the same part of the sky. In other words, a constellation is group of stars imagined by ancient observers to form some kind of picture in the sky. A galaxy is a gravitationally bound congregation of stars numbering in the billions or trillions. In Andromeda's case, about a trillion.|||The Andromeda galaxy was named after the constellation it was found in (it's not really IN the constellation, but far beyond).


The stars we see in the night sky are all in our galaxy, you need a big 'scope to see further.|||Andromeda is the name of two different things. The original andromeda is the constellation. The galaxie is named after the constellation andromeda.