Stu - have you had a look in the General Astronomy area of IIS, then to Observational and Visual Astronomy - there are some thread on what to observe in Feb and March, and other interesting topics as well.
And don't forget NGC4549 in Centaurus plus there are a swag of easy pick galaxies between Virgo, Coma Berenices and Leo
Paul probably means NGC 4945. Yes, takes a bit of star hopping to find but worth it since it will be up high in the sky, early evening later in the year.
I think i am looking in the right places, by using stars as reference.
I think that possibly the locations are too affected by light pollution, as they tend to be in the eastern sky and here in Wollongong we get the orange glow of Port kembla.
Although Sombrero should be NE enough i think.
So if it is not light pollution, am i looking wrong ?
Atm i'm trying to find 2 stars that the Galaxy falls between on finder scope, then i have a few practice runs by panning from one star to another using the FS.
Then i switch to a 15mm Plossl and Pan again, nice and slowly, but i've not seen anything that resembles a Galaxy
What i have seen is the faintest of smudges, like a slightly less black patch in the sky. If this is the galaxy, is light pollution my nemesis, am i imagining the artifact, or am i expecting too much and thats what i should be seeing ?
It can be frustrating Stu ..... many are only faint smudges that you can see using averted vision. You need to be relaxed and comfy, and take your time looking thru the EP, they may be there and you dont realise it.
Why dont you give the galaxies a miss for a couple of weeks, and check out some double stars, some of which are beautifully coloured, some cluster - bful open and globulars, and there are some decent sized nebula out there too.
Then head back to galaxies, after a bit more experience ... you WILL find them!!
PS ..... if you so a search for 'best double stars' 'best nebula' and 'best galaxies' .... will get you some great info.
I think i am looking in the right places, by using stars as reference.
.....
What i have seen is the faintest of smudges, like a slightly less black patch in the sky. If this is the galaxy, is light pollution my nemesis, am i imagining the artifact, or am i expecting too much and thats what i should be seeing ?
Stu
Stu,
Many of the brighter galaxies (some mentioned in this thread) can be spotted with large binoculars or a 4 inch scope in darker skies. Tracking them down there is so much easier as they stand out against the background sky. In any given list of popular targets, most galaxies will have a lower surface brightness than the typically bright open or globular clusters. With significant skyglow, the brightness of the sky will approach or exceed the brightness of the galaxy. This means they will appear dim or washed out- "the faintest of smudges" as you mentioned, or possibly invisible. If you are under urban or bright suburban skies, your problem is most likely too much light pollution. Your finderscope will be pretty much useless in actually spotting the galaxy, so rightly, you will need to star hop and narrow down the region your galaxy is in.
Your scope is more than capable of doing serious observation of any of the galaxies mentioned in the thread. Perhaps, you can locate a regular dark site, not too far away, that you and a few other keen observers can get to easily if you want to observe the galaxies better.
Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is my favourite. It's relatively easy to find and even in a 6-inch newt it appears as a fuzzy cloud, with a dark band visible with averted eye vision (i.e. look a bit away from the object and you'll see it in the corner of your eye).
A telrad is a wonderful thing for getting very very close to a target much of the time. If you have a program such as MegaStar or SkyTools or Starry Night they will draw the telrad circles. Because there are 3 concentric circles you generally can judge the position of local mag 5 or brighter stars nicely so that a fairly wide eyepiece will contain the target OR be able to be found fairly close at hand. If you have paper charts like Sky Atlas 2000 or pocket sky atlas (both excellent for bright objects) then use the Sky Atlas plastic telrad overlay OR make your own from clear plastic with the same pattern of 3 circles then lay it over your chart and bingo, easy field reference.
There have been great galaxy suggestions so I'll throw in a couple fairly bright galaxies that are way up high nowdays that are easy to find to the bunch mentioned. The Leo Triplet has M65 and M66 at mag 10.3 and mag 9.7 respecively AND are within 1/3 degree (20') of each other. As a bonus for at a nice sight the Ngc3628 is harder to detect due to surface brightness but this is only 30 minutes north. The nifty thing about these 3 is a telrad is simply pointed right between Theta Leo and the fairly bright star 5 degrees south-south-East because the Telrad sight is 4 degrees diameter on the outside edge.
Hope the above is not repeating anything said already.
If you like finding things manually a Telrad is worth every penny.
I share your pain Stu, I'm still trying to find my first galaxy (esp. Sombrero). Everytime I say I give up, I wind up back out there again and again beating myself up again and again. X 100. But we know the easy galaxies are out there, we just need to get a bit better at doing this stuff and I guess that takes time in which we will be rewarded soon enough, with the help of these kind people here.
Well you aren't alone Suzy. If I'm trying to find the Sombrero I struggle most of the time. I know other nail it everytime, but I'm still challenged with it. Thank goodness for goto LOL
I share your pain Stu, I'm still trying to find my first galaxy (esp. Sombrero). Everytime I say I give up, I wind up back out there again and again beating myself up again and again. X 100. But we know the easy galaxies are out there, we just need to get a bit better at doing this stuff and I guess that takes time in which we will be rewarded soon enough, with the help of these kind people here.
Hang in there Suzy, you are doing great!! Hopefully you are seeing some bful objects while searching for the elusive galaxies. As said below, perhaps try for Centaurus A (looks like hamburger!!) - its a bit more than a smudge, so easier to see.
PS .... as Paul says ..... I also take quite awhile to find it ... galaxies are elusive but rewarding little beggars!!
Well you aren't alone Suzy. If I'm trying to find the Sombrero I struggle most of the time. I know other nail it everytime, but I'm still challenged with it. Thank goodness for goto LOL
Think I'm in your crowd. I tried to get the Sombrero for the first time the other night. Polar aligned - mount said it was within an arcmin in RA and Dec, GoToed and synced to something a couple of degrees away (think it was Chi Vir).
Picked out the little group of stars near TYC 5531-1324-1. Got Sombrero into the guide camera but with the main scope not pointed in exactly the same direction I couldn't find it.
I gave up and spent the next half hour realigning the finder and guide scopes to agree where the centre of the FOV was. Maybe tonight will be clear.
I can certainly empathise with the difficulty that beginners have in searching for their first deep sky objects (DSOs); like most amateur astronomers when I was starting out I had some difficulty in finding my first DSOs.
So, here is some advice to supplement what has already been given.
What a galaxy looks like through a telescope
I think that a large part of the problem for beginners in finding galaxies is that they don’t know what to expect from galaxies (or rather their expectations are too high).
Often, if a beginner has never had someone show them what they should be looking for and all they have seen to that point are Hubble images, it is no wonder that a galaxy might not jump out at them, even if they have in fact seen it!
To get a real understanding of what one can expect from galaxies in a modest size telescope it is useful to provide a visual representation of how a galaxy appears through eyepiece of such a telescope. This will help to accurately readjust ones expectations of what will be seen which will ultimately help in finding the object.
In my opinion this is a close representation of how the Sombrero galaxy looks through an 8 inch dobsonain at a rural site. Decrease your computer screen contrast and brightness to get more of a feel for how the galaxy will appear a form suburbia. For me the most accurate representation is achieved by decreasing both brightness and contrast to their lowest level, but each computer screen will vary.
Magnification
Another key issue is to use the “right” level of magnification for viewing a galaxy. For finding an object low power often helps with searching the sky in the process of star hopping because the wide field makes it easier accurately match up your view with your sky charts. The chances are if you are just starting out with star hopping you may not be right on the object with the star hop but you will likely be close, so circle outward from that point with the main scope to find the object. This can take some getting used to in a reflecting telescope because the image is upside down and reversed, but if you make concentric outward circles you will not miss any space around the target area and your chances of finding that elusive galaxy increases.
If using a 25mm eyepiece with a 1200mm focal length telescope the resultant magnification will be 48x (1200mm/25mm), at this magnification the sombrero will look quite small, like a fuzzy elongated star. Once you find the object that you are looking for you can increase the magnification by inserting a shorter focal length eyepiece. Increasing the magnification increases the detail visible in an object and darkens the sky background (which provides more contrast in the image), so your view of it will improve with higher magnification. But this is only to a point. Eventually, when you magnify an object too much it becomes dim (the light from the object becomes spread out too much) and it will lose contrast. For an 8” dob a magnification of ~120x (a 10mm eyepiece for a 1200mm focal length telescope) will provide a good view of a galaxy like M104; similar to the sketch by Jeremy Perez above. However, as noted in other posts you will likely need to use averted vision to bring out the details (i.e. the dark dust band).
Observing time
With the moon becoming increasingly bright (it is now in the waxing gibbous phase heading towards the full moon on the 30th) you will have to wait until next month for a dark sky to make any serious observations of galaxies.
The best time to observe M104 will be next month during the new moon at around 11.30pm to 12am when it apaches culmination (crosses the meridian). Here it should be in clear steady air well out of any haze on the horizon and clear of much of the light pollution (the same goes for M83 and NGC5128).
There has been a lot of good advice on this thread about star hopping effectively and using a good star chart so the only other advice I would give is to reiterate those points that have been made.
Other interesting galaxies
In addition to the galaxies mentioned in the other posts M31 (the Andromeda galaxy) and M33 (the Triangulum galaxy) are quite easy to spot despite their low altitude. But you will have to wait for the early mornings (5am) of July to get your first view of these.
Good luck to all the beginners searching for galaxies. Let us know your impressions when you find something...
The Sombrero is somewhat annoying to find as there are no good naked eye stars within close range. I use Delta Corvus as the launch pad. From Delta, use the finder and scan directly north to a large triangle of magnitude 6 stars approx 3º North of delta, with the long axis oriented NE/SW. About a degree NE of the northeastern-most star of this triangle, lies a trio of two 7th mag and a 9th mag star. Within this triangle is another tighter triangle. This is known as the "stargate" asterism. Here I switch to the main scope using the lowest power EP and scan about 40 arc min NE until I come across an asterism known as "Jaws", which takes the appearance of a hammerhead shark. About 20 arcmins SE of this asterism lies the Sombrero.
The hunt is well worth it, the Sombrero is one of the best galaxies in the sky for small scopes.
Getting from Corvus to the triangle "arrowhead" is the hardest step - it is further from Corvus than you expect.
Your pic Eric also shows the asterisms jaws (the two bright stars) correct me if i,m wrong please and Stargate (the 3+1 representing the triangle).
Just a bit of trivia.
Cheers Kev.
Hey Stu
I'm in the 'Gong too (Mt St Thomas) and have the same LP problems as you, the view to my south is pretty much non-existent. The LMC & SMC are all but invisible to me
I use an 8" Dob as well and I can tell you that the only Galaxies I've seen (relatively) clearly are the Leo Triplets and The Sombrero, the latter of which was a real WOW moment for me.
I'm not really focussing on Galaxies until I can find a good dark site.
As has already been posted, check out Omega Centauri, still blows me away every time I take a look
Also if you've got a bit of cash to splash, the Argo Navis is a wonderful piece of equipment to add to your Dob and makes finding the fainter objects much easier.
Good one Suzy, will have to give it a go
Yes, takes a bit of star hopping to find but worth it since it will be up high in the sky, early evening later in the year.
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... you WILL find them!!
