Galaxy project.

[mdstuart]

Good evening

I have recently prepared a list of galaxies that are visible in 50mm binocs and 80mm binoc etc. So using this as a measure it is possible to identify the brightest galaxies then in tiers / categories the more challenging objects. See attached down to category 5..

But try categorising the remaining galaxies you can see in a 10 inch scope for example and your stuck. IE category 1 to 4...

Try magnitude...no it depends on the surface brightness. So try surface brightness (there are many types) but no that does not seem to work as some with say a sbr of 12.8 are brighter than a 11.9 etc..

Try the internet say Saguro astronomy observations and they use the phrases pretty bright or pretty faint etc but of course it depends on the moon, how good the seeing was etc.

What about my own ratings..Well thats fine but I also have variable seeing / moon phase etc...

So what to do and I thought how about going through the galaxies and compare then one with another...So try NGC 6503 and NGC 7331 on one night and see which is brighter and so on.

So if two galaxies are broadly the same height above the horizen say to within 20 deg then I will start comparing and in time I will have a much better listing in categories as to how easy each galaxy is to see. Of course we could use gradually bigger apetures to do this to continue on the 50/80mm idea as well.

Now this will take me a long time UNLESS......some other amatuer astronomers feed me their comparisons and I collect them..

So there you go join me and in the end we will publish the only definitive guide to galaxies and their true visual challenge that there is on the web!

What do you think..

If you already know of a galaxy listing with true visual categories then I will use that instead but I cannot find one.

Mark

Brightest galaxies.txt