Hi Jas,
Your 6" and your father's pending 5" will have no trouble getting Andromeda as Brian and Joe have said. I can spot it too in my 10x60 binoculars. From a dark site you can actually see it naked eye! Well, a faint smudge anyway naked eye, but it's quite sizeable.
As it's so large, use the 25mm eyepiece so it fits within the field of view (fov). If you use a 10mm eyepiece you'll likely be looking straight through it.
Galaxies are best viewed as high as possible in the sky. Especially if there's light pollution around. But even if you don't suffer from light pollution, there's a lot of muck in the lower atmosphere that inhibits decent viewing. Planetary viewing at that alt. is a good example of that. Andromeda doesn't get all that high here, from Brisbane the highest is around 30 degreees. But it's still good viewing.
In summer, I would suggest waiting till after 8pm when astronomical twilight is well and truly out the way so the sky is a bit darker.
An important part of planning an observing session is to write down in order when objects are highest in the sky. So you would start your session with the objects you want to see BEFORE they set too low. And the ones rising later. A software programme such as Stellarium (download it on-line) will help greatly to plan your session.
Dark adapt your eyes, minimum 10 mins, 20 is better, especially for galaxy viewing. Galaxies are often very faint smudges and most quite small. The quality of the sky at time of viewing will also yield different viewing results as to what detail is available. So don't give up on an object- keep going back to it, either that night or other sessions. Don't expect to see a lot though from a 6" scope looking at face on spirals (the arms). Although you'll be able to spot some galaxies, the size of a 6" in my opinion from my experience isn't the best at resolving a decent amount of detail. That being said, my 10" thru light pollution really doesn't reveal a whole lot on many nights, but better than the 6". When I talk about revealing detail, I'm talking about being able to see mottling, dust lanes and arms in a galaxy. Even the Leo triplet is hit and miss for me- sometimes revealing nothing but smudges and other times a bit more. Just be glad you nabbed a galaxy and be in awe of how far away it is and how long that light took to travel to get to your eye. The Sombrero galaxy (M104) for instance is around 40 million light years away! I nabbed that with my 6" thru light pollution but it was a very faint smudgy streak. From a dark site, it fared just a little better but not a whole lot. My 10" resolves it better showing a very bright core, the dust lane and the disc to the other side. Again... different nights will yield different results. One night it was so good, I didn't recognise it!
This galaxy takes high magnification well, so use your 10mm eyepiece.
Virgo is very low at the moment. I doubt very much if you'll get much views out of the other galaxies in Virgo. You may have some chance with M104. I've caught it successfully at 30 degrees in the 6".
My 4" dob still manages to show it up but just as a very faint fuzzy spot.
With Centaurus A, use high magnification there too 10mm).
But again, this is going to be very faint. Even in my 10" it's quite faint. But on good nights I can see the thick black dust lane thru the middle.
M77 in Cetus is one of my favourites and ridiculously easy to find sitting within a degree of- memory blank, forget the star! But you'll work it out.
Now there's a face on spiral that's a good performer. Nice bright core too. The surface brightness of face on spirals are spread out so they can appear quite dim as compared to a spindle galaxy such as M104. But you'll need to wait say a month or so for it to get higher in the sky.
I have a lot more success with viewing objects to some extent in detail if I stick with deep sky objects (DSOs) around magnitude 10. This doesn't include stars. Certainly by all means give them a go. I just don't seem to get anyway with anything mag. 12 DSO wise. From light pollution anyway.
Observe DSOs when the moon is out the way as it brightens the sky too much.
Also throw M57 the ring nebula in Lyra on your list. This also takes high power well.
Loads of stuff in Scorpius and Sagittarius to be seen at the moment. These are on my winter observing list which you've seen. Observe them to the max and study all those nebulae & globular clusters really well- this will get you well trained for when its galaxy observing time. You will get better at picking out faint fuzzies in time, so I suggest perhaps you do your homework in this area as there's such an abundance of objects there, it will keep you busy for some time. When observing globular clusters (GCs) you are looking for granulation. This is called resolving them. Where do you see the granulation- on the edges or can you resolve it to the core. Look at it, turn away and look again. The eyes get excited by doing this method and will give you more detail than just staring at it constantly. Learn the art of averted vision too, but this is all explained in the first link below.
Sculptor is rising at the moment, some nice galaxies there too worth having a look at. Particularly The Silver Coin (NGC 253). It's huge and you will need your 25mm eyepiece to get it all within the fov. It'll appear as a faint and long streak.
I highly recommend the book, "Collins Stars & Planets" which keep objects to attainable viewing esp. for a 6". The maps are very easy to read, and on the facing page is a full description of all the objects.
I've done a wee review of it here in the following link, but while you're at it have a read of my posts #13 thru to #15 as I've listed a lot of helpful tips.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...635#post841635
These binocular objects will look great thru your 6", tho not all will be in the sky right now. But keep the list handy. See posts #1 and further list in #11. Don't just think because they're bino objects they're too boring for a scope- I observe a lot of bino objects in my 10" and get real satisfaction from them as I can see so much!
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ight=Centaurus
And to end it off, I'll give you one dead easy to find galaxy which is visible now. I haven't viewed this thru a 6", but it's a very easy find in my 10" so I'll be interested to see how you go. It's NGC 5102 in Centaurus. It sits within one degree below the bright star iota Centauri. So point your scope on iota and gently hover around a bit- it's the closest object next to that star. Look for a smudgy spot with a brightish core. Perhaps you can make out some faint extensions either side.
Tell your dad if he wants one amazingly fantastic object to view right now to point his scope at Omega Centauri globular cluster (NGC 5139). It's the biggest and brightest glob in the sky.
Have fun you guys!
). It's quite satisfying, I took it when I visited my sister out west and there was plenty of detail in Omega Centauri, Jewel Box, and Saturn to have my family oohing and aahing. Obviously if you want a better image then buy a better scope, a $100 4" F/4 Newt is NEVER going to compete with a 'proper' scope. But it will certainly show him some sky, and it's infinitely better than a wobbletronic Tasco.
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. Maybe because the tables are an awkward height I wonder. But I'm just being ultra critical here. One can just stand 
. Well... they do the job. But if you can replace them with plossls much better! You should be able to buy plossls quite cheaply in the classifieds here or people might actually give them to you. I find a 15mm eyepiece is the highest I can go with stars. With brighter objects like the planets and the moon I can go down to a 10mm eyepiece. But the 15mm is the one that hits the sweet spot the best on everything and that's the one that gets 98% of use. The 15mm size didn't come with the scope, so if you're going to get at least one plossl, get that one. A wide view, say 65 degrees would be even better.
. I've (okay not me persee I'm useless- hubby) cut a hole in the dust cover and made a filter using some tubing and solar film. So that stays permanently on my scope as it's part of the dust cover. To observe at night, you take the cover off.. as you do...
Anyway, here's another which is well respected and often recommended (tho I haven't read it myself):
