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Hi Markus,
I must admit I would have been dubious about any visual sighting of stars in M31 (apart from a bright nova). Mag 14.8 at 2.5 million light years (mentioned as the brightest star in the Sky & Tel article) corresponds to an absolute magnitude of about -9.62, which I guess would make it a blue hypergiant.
Bob King doesn't say at what altitude M31 was observed. I'm guessing it was probably fairly high in the sky. At 10 degrees altitude, I think seeing any of these stars would be unlikely or you would need a lot more aperture.
Don Pensack mentions about a half dozen of the stars superimposed on NGC 206 are in the Milky Way and are just “line of sight” stars. So, it would make it tough to say one way or the other.
Interesting post, thanks
Rob
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