I thought the LMC and SMC were considered to belong to a lesser category of galaxies than Andromeda. Or am I just thinking of the spiral/blob distinction?
There are size/shape distinctions but they are all galaxies. There are issues with spiral/blob issues although in the last few years the discovery of a lot of smaller dwarf galaxies have raised issues with the standard classification. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about this in detail. Size issues may be relevant in that LGM is much smaller than Andromeda (by a factor of around 100).
I thought the LMC and SMC were considered to belong to a lesser category of galaxies than Andromeda. Or am I just thinking of the spiral/blob distinction?
There are size/shape distinctions but they are all galaxies. There are issues with spiral/blob issues although in the last few years the discovery of a lot of smaller dwarf galaxies have raised issues with the standard classification. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about this in detail. Size issues may be relevant in that LGM is much smaller than Andromeda (by a factor of around 100).