Deep sky objects are not spread evenly around the sky.
Most of the open
clusters, "bright"
nebulae and planetary
nebulae are located along the milky way.
Globular
clusters are concentrated around the center of the milky way. (RA 17.8, dec -29)
Galaxies "avoid" the milky way because most of them cannot be seen through it.
The galaxies in Virgo are centered around RA 12.6, dec +14.
This "map" shows the location of 1263 NGC and IC objects south of declination +51.
It shows:
156 open
clusters brighter than magnitude 8 (yellow squares)
91 globular
clusters brighter than magnitude 10 (orange circles)
655 galaxies brighter than magnitude 11.5 (magenta diamonds)
89 planetary
nebulae brighter than magnitude 13, all larger than 0.2' (blue circles)
and all of the 272 "bright" NGC and IC
nebulae south of dec+51. (green squares)
The green and yellow squares mark out the U shaped path of the milky way.
The Large Magellan Clouds is at RA 5.4, dec -68.
The Sun will be at RA 9.5, dec +15 at the next new moon which is 13/8/07.
Northern objects in that area (RA 6 to 12) will not be visible then.
It is interesting to look for pairs and groups of objects on this map.
An Excel file with 1263 southern objects is also included.
You can use the filters to select objects. e.g. Gx with Vmag less than 9.
All of these objects, apart from the faint
nebulae, are visible in an 8 inch (200mm) telescope.
Reference:
http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/n...000/Explan.htm
