What's the most intresting Galaxy you can see through a Telescope?

Question

What's the most intresting?,I do not know!Please help.

Answer 1

I guess that all depends on the size of your telescope!

M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is our closest neighbor, and certainly the easiest to see in an amateur, backyard telescope. But to collect enough light to be able to see it, you need at least a 6" diameter objective and VERY dark skies, and 10-12" is even better.

There are some spectacular ones out there! Good luck, and keep watching the skies!

Answer 2

It depends on how much aperture your telescope has, how dark and clear your skies are, what time if year it is, and if you're in the northern or southern hemisphere.

We'll talk about northern hemisphere galaxies because those are the ones I'm familiar with.

If you have a telescope of around 4.5" in aperture you will only be able to see the brightest galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31 will be easily visible but it's fairly uninteresting in a telescope.

Of much more interest is M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. It will be small and hard to make out but if you have sufficiently dark skies and happen to see it on a good night, it will look like a blurry little sombrero.

Of course the galaxy looks much better in bigger telescopes. The smallest telescope you'd want for deep space galaxy viewing would be 10" in aperture and you must have very dark skies because most galaxies are dim enough to be drowned out by even moderate light pollution.

If you'd like to see what other people see in their telescopes type in "eyepiece sketches" in yahoo or google.

Answer 3

How about looking at our own Milky Way Galaxy. You don't need a telescope. In the Northern hemisphere it runs through Cygnus, Casseopia, and the centre is in Sagittarius.

Look at the color reference below.

Answer 4

My two favorites are M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, and M51, the whirlpool galaxy. The first is an edge-on spiral that shows a nice dark dust lane across it. The second is a face-on spiral galaxy that is in the process of consuming another one.

I've taken some (rather poor) pictures of both with borrowed equipment, you can see them here:
M104 - http://public.clunet.edu/~sjfahmie/m104.jpg
M51 - http://public.clunet.edu/~sjfahmie/m51.jpg