Galaxies up for Australian viewers now?

[maxwolfie]

What's in the sky at this time of year for people living in Australia?

I have yet to find a galaxy through my 8" dob :(

M104, M83 etc are all down before the sky turns black.

Suggestions? Other than the LMC and SMC!

EDIT: Sculptor galaxy?

[Curt]

Hi Greg. Have a crack at Andromeda and the pinwheel. The full moon doesn't help much. There both easy objects to find even if they are a little low on the horizon. Download a star chart app and you can plot your way around the brighter galaxies, globs and nebs.Good luck mate.

[barx1963]

NGC 253 (Sculptor Galaxy) is the obious one and easy to find too! If you have reasonable dark skies it i easy to get in your finder or in binos.
THere are several galaxies near there, most obviously NHC 247, NGC 300 and NGC 55. The globular NGC 288 is also very near 253. A little later in the night you can try NGCs 1097, 1291, 1316, 1365 and 1399 around the Eridanus Fornax border. NGC 1313 in Reticulum is also arounf but it is low SB so may be hard with an 8".
Oh and don't miss the Grus quartet! Easy to find!

Malcolm

[Astro_Bot]

Tonight's Sky says I can see these from 8pm to midnight (I selected 8.5 mag and brighter, i.e. easy targets):


Tonight's Sky (http://tonightssky.com/MainPage.php) is a handy resource. It's fairly easy to use, e.g. select:
(1) Lat/Long
(2) Horizon obstruction
(3) Timezone, viewing time and duration
(4) Difficulty (e.g. select everything up to and including "easy" at 8.5 mag)
(5) Object type(s)
... then click the big red button to generate your viewing list.

Have a play with it.

[maxwolfie]

Brilliant!

[mithrandir]

Nor is also very responsive to making changes which improve TS and SDA.

[erick]

Yep, NGC253 and NGC55 in Sculptor. And look in Grus for the triplet of galaxies that will be readily seen - NGC7582, 7590 and 7599. You might Google them all and look at images so you know what you are looking for.

[andyc]

If you're up for a challenge, there's a supernova just gone off in the big Fornax barred spiral (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=910367#post910367) , NGC1365, which gets high in late evening. Wait for the Moon to get out of the sky, and especially if you have a reasonably dark location it should be withing range of your 8" Dob. The SN is currently estimated at just below 13th mag, according to observations and images at the linked thread, so a potential target for 8" scopes, and perhaps a bit smaller at a good site. Why not try and mark your first galaxy with a first supernova! :D

Nearby to NGC1365 there are several other fairly bright galaxies that are actually easier to see in an 8" scope, the big ellipticals NGC1399 and NGC1404, also in the Fornax galaxy custer, have a higher surface brightness.

[GraemeT]

G'day Greg,
I was in the same position as you a couple of years back. It sounds silly, but you probably need to be taught how to see DSOs. Once you see one, you'll see more and more as you learn. Try and get some practical help at a club viewing night. There are a number of astro clubs within an hours drive of Wentworthville, (see the club listings on this site) and there are people who will show you what to do. I was lucky to find a mentor very quickly and this has taken my astro viewing from despair to delight.

[Suzy]

Hi Greg, :)

I second everything Graeme said, including a mentor. A good mentor is invaluable in teaching how to observe and what to look for in an object. There are things that I wouldn't have picked myself unless my (long suffering! You know who you are!) mentor has shown me or told me. But if you can't get one, this forum is the next best thing I think.;) There is so much to learn here with so many resources available at your finger tips. Visit the Observing Forum here and read through as many threads as you can- it'll give you a fair idea of what to expect to see, or what to look for in an object just from reading them. It has helped me no end.

Many of the galaxies are really quite faint- even harder if you live amongst light pollution. And remember, do not observe DSOs (deep sky objects) whilst the moon is out (the sky will be too bright).
When I first started out, I actually held off galaxy viewing for a good year and a bit (except for M104, M31 which are quite bright) when I first started out. I concentrated on polishing up some observing skills by viewing nebulae. And I'm very glad I did as I don't have much of a problem nowadays picking up very faint objects in my scope (what light pollution will allow me to view from my backyard).
My advice would be to start observing some nebulae- the Tarantula (NGC 2070)in the LMC is a good one, as is the Orion nebula (M42). The latter being the easiest to find. Observe these over many different nights and pick out details- dark lanes, folds, shadowing, anything. Some nights on M42 you may even be able to make out lots of dark criss-crossing patterns on the larger wing & eventually you might even be able to pick out the rusty copper colour of the fold on the wings edge as I have. Challenge yourself further and see if you can make out the fainter E & F stars that are tightly nestled against the brighter stars (we call this "splitting" stars) of the Trapezium inside the nebula. Of course different nights will produce different results which are dependent on the seeing & transparency conditions, which is why it's important to keep going back to an object.
Have a look here (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/B_WINTER/TRAPEZ.HTM) for some very helpful info on the Trapezium inside the Orion Nebula (M42).

If you're going for the Silver Coin galaxy (NGC 253), I've come to realise that it doesn't like high magnification, so use low power around 50X. It is quite large and shows up as a long streak albeit on the faint side. Using my 10" dob there was no detail visible but then again I'm viewing thru light pollution.

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31 is another one). It's huge. Again, use your low power eyepiece on this one. You will actually see another 2 little galaxies around it. Two are visible in the same field of view and the other sits just below.

One of my favorite galaxies, Cetus A (M77) is a gorgeous little face on spiral which sits very close (from memory I think only one degree away) to one of the bright stars that makes up the constellation of Cetus. You can go high power on this one. Even thru light pollution, it performs well. On a good night you may be able to make out some of the the faint outer arms as I have.

The above three galaxies are very easy to find! :D
Go slow- there's plenty of galaxies up there and they won't be disappearing anytime soon. ;)

There was a thread running a while back on galaxy viewing with some good tips that should be of some help to you. You can view it here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=58377).

Also, take a look at this thread here. (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=18551)
In particular, see post no#6 on the brightest & easiest galaxies to view as posted by Glen Cozens. In that thread, Glen has done five different posts, each giving a great list of different DSO's that are easy to view. Glen is a seasoned observer & his posts are a valuable contribution to this forum.

When hunting down galaxies to view, note the capabilities of your scope's resolving power and light pollution will also play a factor. Once you know what magnitude your scope is capable of then you choose which ones to go after. The smaller the magnitude number, the brighter the object (i.e. mag -9 is going to be brighter than mag -12). Well.. generally speaking anyway, unless you come across a large DSO showing a bright magnitude it may not appear as bright as you thought it should (the Silver Coin galaxy is a good example) because the surface brightness is spread out more.

When you get better at chasing them down, this list here (http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galax200.html) of the 200 brightest galaxies may come in useful for you. Again, note the mag.!

Have fun and enjoy!!!
Suzy.