14 replies to this topic

[Ira]

M31 is my favorite, but it is starting to disappear into the west earlier and earlier. What galaxies are your favorite(s) for outreach events?

/Ira

[jrbarnett]

I have four I really like for outreach.

M82 (the "Cigar") as it shows structure (the disrupted core; mottling) even in very small scopes.

NGC 253 (the "Silver Dollar") as it's large, bright and distinctly ovoid.

NGC 4565 (the "Needle") as it presents a classic "edge on" profile in moderate aperture.

M104 (the "Sombrero") as its distinctive dust lane is visible directly under suburban skies in 6"+ scopes.

Regards,

Jim

[skyward_eyes]

M31, M81 & M82, M104 and under darker skies M51, NGC4565.

[Matthew Ota]

Doing outreach in a Bortle 9 zone I have never shown galaxies in my scope during outreach. With an LP filter, 40mm EP and a 10 inch SCT I can just barely show the Ring Nebula.

In my experience the general public are more impressed by looking at the moon and planets through the telescope.

But that is because I do mostly urban astronomy outreach.

[Skylook123]

As with Matthew, most of my outreach is in the middle of an urban center - Tucson, AZ. On the edge of town, however, Jim and Kevin have listed mine, except for M31. My main instruments have such a long focal length that M31 loses context when 3+ degrees of galaxy is squeezed into 3/4 degrees of FOV. Nope, not buying an Ethos.

I've heard NGC4565 also called Berenices' Hairclip (supposedly by John Dobson), and both M81 and M82 called Bode's Nebulae.

Finally, when the dark sky and seeing support, a trip along Markarian's Chain (M84/86 and onward) is worth the tour. In the 10" or 18" I will often have visitors move the scope along the chain. At the Grand Canyon Star Party, each visitor can watch dozens of galaxies flow through the view include The Eyes. More than one visitor has called that personal trip up the chain "life altering." It takes a bit of altitude and a lot of dark to get the full benefit, though.

[jrbarnett]

Markarian's Chain is a nice culmination of a public galaxy session from a dark site in particular. Under mag 6.5 skies last April my 140mm refractor showed more than twenty galaxies of the chain in a single 1.3 degree FOV. Also that far south (Tucson), Centaurus A is a great galaxy to share. Big, bright and cloven like a goat hoof.

Regards,

Jim

[Skylook123]

Good call on Centaurus A, Jim. I'm such a geriatric observer that when I look at it, I remember old Popeye cartoons and Wimpy saying "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The thing looks like a hamburger. However, I usually only try it with the 18", and the galaxy is so low, 14 degrees elevation at transit, that folks need to kneel down or actually sit on the ground with legs under the secondary cage to get down to the eyepiece. With the primary supported by a sling, I need to be very careful about how low in elevation I go. I've never really used Centaurus A at public sessions, since the time of year that it's available at public events, late spring into early summer, I'm heavily into end-of-year at schools in town or busy at Grand Canyon Star Party, and the tree line at the Canyon gets in the way. Enough other eye candy available at that time of year.

[Jason B]

I have four I really like for outreach.

M82 (the "Cigar") as it shows structure (the disrupted core; mottling) even in very small scopes.

NGC 253 (the "Silver Dollar") as it's large, bright and distinctly ovoid.

NGC 4565 (the "Needle") as it presents a classic "edge on" profile in moderate aperture.

M104 (the "Sombrero") as its distinctive dust lane is visible directly under suburban skies in 6"+ scopes.

Regards,

Jim

Good List Jim. NGC253 is a little harder here as it is quite low. NGC2903 as well as M65/M55 are good ones for us as well. M51 in the summer/spring is always popular as our 16" SCT shows it well. M64 is also a good spring one as the "black eye" is pretty easy for people to see with the big scope.

This time of year, other than sinking M31, there aren't too many good ones early in the evening that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Patrick]

I think M81-M82 in the same field of view are my favorite outreach galaxies. They both just fit into my CPC1100 with a 0.66x focal reducer and TV 27mm Panoptic eyepiece. Gorgeous!

Patrick

[amicus sidera]

Ditto Patrick's choice above... M81 and M82 are consistent performers, and are usually fairly well-placed during the warmer months when most outreach occurs.

[George N]

I have four I really like for outreach.

M82 (the "Cigar") as it shows structure (the disrupted core; mottling) even in very small scopes.

NGC 253 (the "Silver Dollar") as it's large, bright and distinctly ovoid.

NGC 4565 (the "Needle") as it presents a classic "edge on" profile in moderate aperture.

M104 (the "Sombrero") as its distinctive dust lane is visible directly under suburban skies in 6"+ scopes.

Regards,

Jim

Good List Jim. NGC253 is a little harder here as it is quite low. NGC2903 as well as M65/M55 are good ones for us as well. M51 in the summer/spring is always popular as our 16" SCT shows it well. M64 is also a good spring one as the "black eye" is pretty easy for people to see with the big scope.

This time of year, other than sinking M31, there aren't too many good ones early in the evening that I can think of off the top of my head.

All good! How did Messier miss NGC 2903???? It’s always a good target for a 20-inch and even a 4-inch under fairly dark sky.

I don’t do much “outreach”, it’s more “in-reach”, i.e., they come to us, and our observatory in a fairly dark location. We are open every Friday evening, and some other times for groups. We even get 30 to 40 hearty souls who come to Kopernik Observatory ( web page )on a snowy night in January! On a clear dark night it will be more like a hundred people.

One complaint we get: “You guys are always showing the same thing: Saturn, M-42, etc.” So we are thinking of adding “challenge nights” for our regulars.

[Ira]

I would be interested in seeing your list of challenge objects.

/Ira

[Jason B]

All good! How did Messier miss NGC 2903???? It’s always a good target for a 20-inch and even a 4-inch under fairly dark sky.

Every spring, we wonder how he missed that one!?!

One complaint we get: “You guys are always showing the same thing: Saturn, M-42, etc.” So we are thinking of adding “challenge nights” for our regulars.

We are open every Saturday evening and at times run into the same thing. We recently acquired a video eyepiece which has been a big hit on the moon on "moon nights". We also do a lot more informal "talks/lectures" about our observatory, telescopes, and the various objects we look at. We have a white board on one wall that we change up every month or so with distances to the most popular objects. After we got through the main objects of the night, we do "requests" and hard objects that not only test the eyes but we also try to pick objects that have something unique about them that we can talk about (i.e distance, rare, etc). When all else fails, we get out a book and start looking up things in the constellations near the meridian, etc. We have found planetary nebula to be very popular.

One thing we have been dong to is monthly astrophotography nights that have been nicely attended by newbies and veterans alike. We also recently were gifted solar filters for our main scopes so we are in the planning stages regarding daytime activities and the Venus transit.

[George N]

I would be interested in seeing your list of challenge objects.

/Ira

I don’t have a “challenge list”. By “challenge” I was meaning going a little dimmer than the dozen or so things we most often show to the public. For example, a few days ago we showed people the usual bright stuff (M-42, Jupiter, Mars, the moon, a few double stars), but then moved on to M-1 and M-79. We had about a hundred people and only 5 scopes, so we could only show so much.

If you have a smaller group and start bright, I find that people who have never looked thru a scope can gradually move down to say 11th magnitude galaxies in our C-14 or 20-inch with little difficulty. Of course for experienced observers, a “challenge object” using a 20-inch is something like a group of 14th mag galaxies. In the springtime there’s often one or more ‘dim fuzzies’ in the eyepiece no matter where you point the scope.

[buddyjesus]

I generally only show the brightest objects since I have a modest telescope aperture. I use a home-made wide field low power eyepiece to show star fields of the milky way in Scutum or Cygnus. I do show M51 if it is positioned well at 50x or M31 in the lowest power eyepiece.