Whitlock Curator: J. Privacy Policy and Important Notices. Yes, you can see a few other galaxies without using a telescope! Return to the StarChild Main Page. Go to Imagine the Universe! If you are going on a trip to view the Milky Way, why not view it from up close? These binoculars are specified for astronomical or terrestrial viewing. They too can be purchased at REI.
For access to exclusive gear videos, celebrity interviews, and more, subscribe on YouTube! Product Recommendations by Matt Leontis. More Videos. More from Travel. Because of this, their spectra are essentially continuous. Some observers with large scopes use an 82A filter to observe galaxies because of what it does to suppress the natural glow of the upper atmosphere. Other observers have used both light and dark blue filters on bright spiral galaxies to boost the contrast of their arms.
Whether or not your telescope will provide superb views on any given night is out of your control. The seeing — or atmospheric steadiness — sets the limit on how much detail is available. Some amateur astronomers believe that because galaxies are extended objects, seeing does not affect them as much as, say, double stars. These four objects are barred spirals. Visually observing detailed spiral structure, like you see in images, requires a large telescope.
My preference is to use inch telescopes and larger for such work. Most irregulars are faint, but there are exceptions. The king of irregular galaxies for northern amateur astronomers is M82 in Ursa Major. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are, by virtue of their closeness, the brightest galaxies — of any type — period. Do you have a large scope and lots of patience? Observing clusters of galaxies may be for you.
Such groupings, held together by mutual gravitational attraction, can contain a handful of galaxies or more than a thousand. The former is a group of stars also known as an open cluster. The latter is a group of galaxies.
Two popular clusters of galaxies are the Virgo Cluster and the Fornax Cluster. While the Virgo Cluster is the best known such group, many observers consider the Fornax Cluster the finest for amateur astronomers because of the interesting galaxies it contains.
They number just NGC visual magnitude 9. This is a face-on barred spiral with open spiral arms. Indeed, the brightest Abell clusters can provide serious satisfaction for large-scope users. Unfortunately, thousands of these groups will forever lie beyond the range of amateur instruments. For other galaxy clusters, try the brightest members of the Hickson Catalog.
Many catalogs of galaxies exist. All of these catalogs give positions in right ascension and declination for the included galaxies, accurate to a few arcseconds. If you need information about a galaxy, try NED first. At this writing, it includes data for million objects. All of the above mentioned catalogs are subsets of the NED and are in its data set.
Prepare to be overwhelmed! Your assignment. Start with them, then move to fainter targets. And take your time. Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter.
View our Privacy Policy. The Large Magellanic Cloud and its neighbour and relative, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are conspicuous objects in the southern hemisphere, looking like separated pieces of the Milky Way to the naked eye. The two small blobs on the left side of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic clouds:. Large and Small Magellanic clouds.
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