What else can I see : Galaxies

[ShuttleAU]

Following on from the previous thread which galaxies are easy targets for an 8 inch or 10 inch scope ?

Shuttle.

[Strider_]

This is a good place to start

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-268-0-0-1-0.html

[Liz]

Hi Shuttle :hi:, depending on where you live, and the degree of light pollution.
Centaurus A is a beauty (NGC5128) - quite large and bright (for a galaxy).
The Sculpter galaxies are also wonderful, large and quite bright (as per list supplied by Dylan).
M31 is the amazing Andromeda Galaxy, and is visible from my place as naked eye, but depending where you live.
Many galaxies are smaller, with low surface brightness, and tricky to spot, but there are other brighter ones.
The Leo triplet are a delight - 3 visible in the EP (eyepiece).

[erick]

Also the Grus Triplet - NGC7582, 7590 and 7599.

[barx1963]

Once Virgo get up a bit there are lots of Messier objects that are all easily visible in 8", and plenty of other galaxies. Under moderately dark skies lots of galaxies to spot in that part of the sky!

[Stu Ward]

I don't think any of them are "easy" apart from andromeda I guess. Most require skill to find and the ability to use averted vision, which is a skill within itself.

[Suzy]

On a good clear night I recently, I spotted Centaurus A through binos in my light polluted suburb when it was about 55 degrees high. Feint, small, elongated and fuzzy- but very definitely there in the binos. A check on Starry Night software confirmed my sighting as I sketched the surrounding stars (which will be useful as a star hop with the scope). I now look forward to pointing my scope at it when next I get a good, clear sky as this object has eluded me in my scope from the previous summer.

If I can get it in my 10x60 binos, you should be able to get it in your scope, but wait till it's high enough and the sky is clear. High cloud is a real killer - even for binos pointing at bright star clusters. High cloud is tricky- the sky looks clear, but its not. And you will notice the stars twinkling a lot. If you look at the sky just before it turns dark you will see the high cloud I mean. Last nights horrible viewing session with my binos was a good example of that. Generally I don't bother taking the scope out when that's the case and settle for bino viewing instead.

Andromeda galaxy is absolutely breathtaking, big and bright in a scope and takes up the whole field of view. I've only viewed this from a dark site though, not sure how it holds up in Suburbia. It's not time for Andromeda though, but do remember to have a look at it when it comes back, as it is a real jaw dropper.

Great thread by the way, I'm writing down all these suggestions others have posted. This is a question I was going to start a thread myself on soon. :D

Happy galaxy hunting! ;) :)

[ausastronomer]

Hi Shuttle,

First thing to remember is that even most of the brighter galaxies are still fairly dim targets. Consequently the most important thing is to have dark skies.

When you get to dark skies here's 166 of them to keep you busy. They are sorted in order of magnitude order. This is an extract of the galaxies from my 600 target Southern skies observing list. Some of them are beyond a 10" scope but there's plenty here to keep you going.

Cheers,
John B

[morls]

That's a great list John, thanks for posting it.

What's the best way to print it? It comes out as a 1 page pdf for me that's to small to read....

[morls]

Just thought of the answer....A3!

(i'm a bit slow today....)

[ausastronomer]

Hi Stephen,

If anyone wants to send me a PM with their email address, I am happy to email them the file in Excel format, which is simple to print over a couple of pages. For whatever reason I can't upload an excel file to this website.

Cheers,
John B

[ShuttleAU]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and the lists. A big help and gives some items to search for next time the sky is clear.

Shuttle.

[Suzy]

Fantastic list John. I already have your list of carbons stars printed out as well.:D I will pm you with my email address for the galaxy list. Many thanks.

[supernova1965]

I can't resist as it was done to me when I first joined this great group so here goes. The MilkyWay Galaxy is the easiest to see:P:rofl:

[gpb]

Great thread, very useful information here. :thanks:

[alistairsam]

Hi,

after looking at M83 last night through an 8" F6 Dob, my hopes have been dashed of seeing galaxies visually from light polluted cities. this was in melbourne.
it was a very faint smudge, could barely see the core but no hint of the spiral arms.
I might try again with a light pollution filter, but being a 7.9 Mag galaxy, I was hoping to see some faint hint of spiral arms.
did not try averted vision though.

not sure if my focal length, F6 makes a difference visually. I know focal length greatly reduces exposure time for AP, but would it make a difference for visual observation?

second is the quality of the mirror. mine is an 8" bintel dob with I guess a decent mirror, about 2 years old, will quality of the mirror make a difference in amount of light or would it show up as improvement in contrast, especially the peak to valley wave rating they often advertise?

I saw eta carina through Eric's 12" SDM in a dark site and thats permanently etched in my brain. unbelievable depth and contrast and clarity, undoubtedly due to quality of mirror, eye piece, aperture and dark site. but I wonder what makes the most difference.
mirror reflectivity, quality, eyepiece, dark site?

edit: i find calsky.com an invaluable tool in planning an observing session

[erick]

By a "country mile", DARK SITE! :thumbsup:

I had what I thought were great views with my first scope - an 8" Bintel (GSO) dob using the supplied GSO eyepieces - BUT under Snake Valley's dark skies. I recall that I could just glimpse M65 and M66 cores in Melbourne suburbs.

[yusufcam]

recently went out to my fathers place in the country and was flabbergasted at what the sky looked like. In a number of ways I could see more with the naked eye than i could with a scope in surburban sydney.

i was also surprised to see that you could see just a well to the horizon as you could looking straight up.

was an eye opener, for sure.

[jenchris]

Thanks for the magic list of Galaxies that's going to be wonderful!!
To print out on 2 x A4 when you 're in the print screen, click on print view and adjust the view to 1/2 the list

[barx1963]

Hi Alastair
Paddy and I had a few looks at M83 down at Snake Valley in my 12" and his 16". It is a fairly challenging object even with pretty good skies at SN and lots of aperture. Of course experience and persistence helps with seeing more. I think I spent about 1/2 an hour in total observing it and fianlly got a dark lane and an arm. In suburban skies even 16" would struggle to get much more than the core.
Of course if you want a challenge, later in the year try for M74 in Pisces. Very faint, low surface brightness galaxy, one of the hardest Messier galaxies to nab even in the country if you are using 8".
I am not sure that focal length really makes much difference when observing visually, really there wouldn't be that much difference between f6 and f5 anyways, and any faster is going to push up the $$$. There are now a few f4 imaging newts at quite low prices available. Would be interesting to hear what people find with these if used for visual.
Likewise mirror quality. The GSO mirrors generally are excellent for the money, and from what I understand are bettere than what would have been a premium mirror 20 years ago.
So in short the single biggest factor in what you are going to see will be the darkness of your sky and the seeing conditions.

Malcolm

[ausastronomer]

Hi,

A Dark site is more important than all of the other things you mention added together. They all individually add small increments of improvement but by far the most critical is a dark sky. By dark, I don't mean 50km out of Melbourne either. That's 1/2 dark :)

When you do get to a dark sky, all of those other factors you mention will have a more noticeable effect also. Like a good mirror and good eyepieces.

As Malcolm also mentioned it takes time to develop your observing skills. Under identical conditions with identical equipment, an experienced observer will see more than an inexperienced observer. You need to remember these are very dim targets. Not like a colour photograph. Spend time on each target (10 minutes plus, for starters). Look for contrast changes or slight changes in brightness across different parts of the target. You will then "start" to make out some of the structure which is easily visible in photographs. However, you are wasting your time from suburban or urban skies. If you want to observe from home that is fine, but tailor your target choice to suit the conditions. ie pick bright targets like moon, planets, double or variable stars. These target types are much brigher and not so diffuse and are easily observed from light polluted skies.

Cheers
John B

[madbadgalaxyman]

I don't think any galaxy is an easy target if you have even a moderately light polluted sky and/or a modest amount of thin cloud in the way! The naked eye extent & visibility of the Milky Way is a good indicator of how good (or bad) your conditions are going to be for viewing galaxies with a telescope.

Oddly, 10 inches of aperture is actually considerably better for viewing galaxies than 8 inches. The extra light gathering power of a 10 inch (a factor of 1.56X more light) seems to make a big difference. Good mirror coatings can also increase the contrast on these very diffuse objects!

Galaxies are objects of low surface brightness, and they look fuzzy and out of focus when we view them at the eyepiece; it takes quite a lot of practice to train the eye so as to be able to see the detail that is there in an eyepiece view. Observing a specific galaxy for a substantial length of time also helps......we notice ever more details, the longer we look at a challenging object.

My favourite objects during many years of visual observation with 10-12 inches of aperture included:

NGC 1097 - the long bar in this galaxy is fairly obvious.
NGC 1365 - the bar and the spiral arms can be seen
M61 - the spiral arms are fairly obvious
NGC 4565 - a perfect edge-on spiral
NGC 4945 - a complex and enigmatic edge-on spiral which shows considerable detail with 8-12 inches of aperture

The core of the Fornax Cluster of galaxies near NGC 1399 shows a multitude of faint galaxies in a single field.

M33 is an object better suited to binoculars than a telescope, due to its enormous angular extent. Big binoculars (70-120mm aperture) used in a dark sky show the spiral arms very well.

The bright members of the Sculptor group of galaxies are all interesting with 8-12 inch telescopes:
NGC 300 (a hard object due to its large size and low surface brightness )
NGC 55 (a galaxy similar to the LMC which is very easy to see in the amateur telescope)
NGC 253 (the Silver Coin Galaxy) shows much detail in visual observations.

cheers,
madbadgalaxyman

[madbadgalaxyman]

More of madbadgalaxyman's favourite galaxies:

Here are some more galaxies that show significant structure when viewed with 8-12 inches of aperture.

NGC 3115 - this edge on S0 galaxy has an interesting structure that can be plainly seen with careful visual observation.

NGC 6822 (Barnard's Galaxy) - this nearby Dwarf Irregular is of low surface brightness, and it is very extended, but careful observation will reveal its overall structure. This is also an excellent object for wide-field telescopes and large binoculars.

NGC 6744 - a bright galaxy which is, however, of very low surface brightness because it is so large and extended in the sky. As such, the detail that can be seen in it is considerable, but you need an excellent sky and you need to keep working at it, in order to figure out the structures that you are seeing.
Much of the structure of NGC 6744 can be seen by the visual observer, but this is a challenging object.

NGC 2442 - if you have an excellent sky, and you use averted vision, the bar and the spiral arms of this Barred Spiral can be seen (but be prepared to come back to this galaxy again and again, so as to get a good idea of what is in the field of your eyepiece, as it is very ghostly)

NGC 1313 - this object is very extended in the sky, with a large and strong bar. Very numerous isolated star clouds can be seen well outside of the bar. The highly unusual and rather asymmetric structure of this galaxy, which is on the borderline between an irregular galaxy and a spiral galaxy, can be discerned with the eye.

NGC 1566 - an impressive face-on spiral which can, under good conditions, reveal much of the detail that is seen in photographs. The arms are obvious, as is the bright star-like Seyfert nucleus.

NGC 3268 field - this is the Antlia cluster of galaxies. There are actually two concentrations of faint galaxies in the Antlia Cluster , and this is one of them. In this field, you might see up to a dozen galaxies in a single wide field. They are very faint, but it is nice to see "galaxies as grains of sand".

M77 - check out the starlike Seyfert active nucleus which virtually dominates the light of the entire galaxy!

M104 - The Sombrero is one of the few galaxies that visually looks just like it does in photographs.

NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 - this famous pair of colliding galaxies requires careful attention when viewed by eye, but I have always found that the overall structure of both of these strange galaxies can be discerned with visual observation.

NGC 3256 - a very odd galaxy that is an observational challenge. It is small, but of decent surface brightness. This galaxy is the result of a collision between two galaxies.
You will need to persist, if you wish to discern the "train wreck" morphology of this weird galaxy.

IC 4662 - distant dwarf irregulars are often very very faint when viewed by the eye, but this Dwarf Irregular galaxy's structure is plain to see, with the eye.
There are two supergiant nebular complexes in this galaxy that are visually obvious. These objects are comparable to the Tarantula Nebula.

NGC 4449 - this northern dwarf irregular galaxy is an excellent object for modest apertures.

N5102 and N5253 - these two dwarf S0 galaxies are of reasonably high surface brightness, and as such their overall structure can be discerned with 8-12 inches of aperture (if the sky is very good). These are low luminosity galaxies that are physically associated with M83 and NGC 5128, and they are well worth a look.

N4631 - an edge-on spiral with a very odd and somewhat distorted structure. Some of this can be seen with the eye.

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup: nice list there thanks John :thumbsup: that should keep me busy for a while ;)