Test me

[SSY]

I was close, ish, i hope we get easier stuff than

"Classify this unknown and unexplained phenomena, your time starts now."

[BadPoison]

http://www.lsw.uni-heidelberg.de/users/mcamenzi/n4258.jpg
M87



NGC 246

[BadPoison]

I was close, ish, i hope we get easier stuff than

"Classify this unknown and unexplained phenomena, your time starts now."

I remember when I first read about the Sloan great wall, I was floored. What a wonderful way to feel small.

[SSY]

Err, looks like a bok globule or other nebulae, assuming it is a galaxy though  either the stars are ancient pop 2 stars, or they are ultra sparse to my reckoning, to explain the dimness.

I am really hoping those giant stars are in the foreground as well.

I would go for some form of eliptical, maybe a dwarf spheroidal on account of the dimness, I would expect a GC to be denser than that.

dSph is what I am going for

Edit, felt the same way about the coma cluster, " what? galaxies are in clusters and these clusters are arranged into super clusters? And there are billions of stars in even a single galaxy? Woah"

[BadPoison]

Err, looks like a bok globule or other nebulae, assuming it is a galaxy though  either the stars are ancient pop 2 stars, or they are ultra sparse to my reckoning, to explain the dimness.

I am really hoping those giant stars are in the foreground as well.

I would go for some form of eliptical, maybe a dwarf spheroidal on account of the dimness, I would expect a GC to be denser than that.

dSph is what I am going for

No you're right, NGC 246 is a nebulae.

And what about M87 (You'll have to click the linky.) -- It's most certainly a galaxy.

Edit, felt the same way about the coma cluster, " what? galaxies are in clusters and these clusters are arranged into super clusters? And there are billions of stars in even a single galaxy? Woah"

Precisely!

[SSY]

M87

there is some degree of barrness right there, you can tell from the overshoot of the arms. the arms are tightly wound and poorly resolved, this puts it as an early type spiral, SBa I would go for.

note, early type and late type have no chronological meaning, it is a hangover from hubbles assumptions about galactic evolution.

[McQ]

I'm just going to put a curve ball down the pipe here. Just a shot the HST Ultra Deep Field View. What are the galaxies in the photo? I don't know their names, but what I want to know is their classification. This is a good test.

[SSY]

Hmm,

That one in the top left is lenticular, barred, maybe SBo1

top right is a spiral S3 I would say

the ornage one below it is a barred spiral, SBab

There looks to be a yellow eliptical in there, quite small but sdense, im going E4 on account of its elongation.

That irregular cluster at the bottom has poor declination, its hard to make out, Im going spiral for top 2 and Irr2 for the bottom one, though the dust lanes are the most prominant feature.

[karadan]

I LOVE this stuff!! makes me go all starry-eyed with wonder.  

What a beautifully magnificent place the universe is!

[McQ]

Hmm,

That one in the top left is lenticular, barred, maybe SBo1

top right is a spiral S3 I would say

the ornage one below it is a barred spiral, SBab

There looks to be a yellow eliptical in there, quite small but sdense, im going E4 on account of its elongation.

That irregular cluster at the bottom has poor declination, its hard to make out, Im going spiral for top 2 and Irr2 for the bottom one, though the dust lanes are the most prominant feature.

Well, I wish I knew all of the correct answers, but I can only guess at them.
I am fascinated by that Spiral in the upper right. It just looks strange, possibly due to the angle of view, but it interests me.
I am enjoying this thread, by the way (the amateur astronomer geek in me is all jazzed up!). Good idea, SSY.

[Recusant]

M81


Probably too easy for you, but one of my favorites.

[SSY]

I went and got a bigger picture.

The arms are quite tightly wound, but the bulge is a bit too small, and the arms too well resolved to call it an Sa, I am going for Sb on that one. The galaxy is slightly elongated, but I would not go far as to say it has a bar in it.

[McQ]

Do you have you Messier Certification, or is that what you're going for? What do you use for instrumentation for viewing?

[karadan]

I did some reading up last night because this thread has rekindled a fire within me for space stuff I found out a few astonishing facts (well, to me.. you guys probably already knew them).

The andromeda galaxy has a 'satellite galaxy' (M32) which orbits on a different plane. It passed through the main disk of Andromeda at some point in the past, stripping it of some of its mass and causing various rings on the plane of andromedas disk.

Andromeda appears quite small without a telescope because only the central part is bright enough to be visible, but the full angular diameter of the galaxy is seven times that of the full moon!

[McQ]

I did some reading up last night because this thread has rekindled a fire within me for space stuff I found out a few astonishing facts (well, to me.. you guys probably already knew them).

The andromeda galaxy has a 'satellite galaxy' (M32) which orbits on a different plane. It passed through the main disk of Andromeda at some point in the past, stripping it of some of its mass and causing various rings on the plane of andromedas disk.

Andromeda appears quite small without a telescope because only the central part is bright enough to be visible, but the full angular diameter of the galaxy is seven times that of the full moon!

Cool stuff. It looks really nice through a good pair of astronomical binoculars. I have an older version of the Celestron C-8 telescope, which I love, but I REALLY love using astronomical binoculars for viewing. I've got a pair of Celestron 8X56 that are light and easy to use. Probably use them more than anything else. And the big daddy of binoculars for me is the Celestron 25 x 100mm SkyMaster. It's a heavy beast, but that's what tripods are made for!