it's full of stars (Blue Mountains)

At some point during the weekend we viewed the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31 or M31). There had been some rumblings of a supernova with the gamma ray burst (GRB) detection report. But when we viewed the big galaxy, it was not obvious. There are so many foreground stars... I wondered, could it be that one? Or that one? So much going on. Being so close, so large, covering so much of the sky, there are consequently a lot of Milky Way galaxy stars in the way. It would be difficult to tell. Photography is the way to go. But we did not image it. But, by then, people were saying the GRB incident had been a glitch... False alarm. And there was certainly nothing super bright.