Minimum aperture for globulars and galaxies

Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers

16x70mm binoculars.

-Florian

Bill Meyers wrote:

Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,

Not to be a hardass, but this is difficult to answer unless you first
define "satisfying." And globulars and galaxies are very different, so
they will require separate answers... And which globulars and galaxies?
M31 and M15 or some NGC object? And is this a true dark site or
somebody's suburban backyard...

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

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http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:06:53 -0400, Bill Meyers
wrote:

Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers


Depends on what your definition of "satisfying" is.

For a full featured, textured view of spiral arms and an instrument
capable of doing comparative studies of seyfert galaxies, a 1 to 4
meter instrument should do it. ; )

My 7X50 binos show nice views of globs and brighter galaxies while my
8 incher gives me views that will "satisfy" me for decades to come.

Very subjective, YMMV


G../0

Hello, all, What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture
necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?

Whew. 'Satisfying ' is pretty relative. Darker skies make up for some aperture.
Eyepieces also make a difference. Depends on which GCs and GXs, too.
Let's use the best Messiers and at least a good set of Plossls.
Given a 6th mag. sky or better, views with 90mm or less can be
satisfying.
Satisfying becomes Jawdropping around 8-10inches.
Jawdropping becomes Mindblowing after 16inches.

SSX

What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?

I would say about 50" - 70" should do it. The views would be very satisfying.

Roland Christen

Bill Meyers wrote:
Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers


My friends 50 mm Tasco (hot rodded, mind you) does jusice to some of the
bigger ones. My 80 mm Stellarvue works great.

Shawn

8"
rat
~( );

email: remove 'et' from .com(et) in above email address

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:06:53 -0400, Bill Meyers
wrote:

Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers

If this didn't come from an s.a.a. regular I'd swear it was a troll. ;-)
Of course, you know very well what everyone is saying, Bill, that it
depends on the definition of "satisfying". But I think there's more to it
than that because there are just so many variables. Of course, a smaller
scope with dark sky may outperform a large scope in a poor sky but I'll
assume you mean under ideal conditions. I've had very satisfying views of
M31 in binoculars and disappointing views of it in huge telescopes. There
are different types of satisfying views (e.g., wide-angle or high-power)
of the same object. And perhaps most important, what are the observer's
expectations? Do you want to see all of M31 or the globulars (or stars!)
in it? One of my most exciting observations ever was barely seeing M31
for the first time in 8x30 binos. In a dark sky with big binos I'm very
satisfied with the views I get but I don't pass up a chance to see it in a
big scope. It's just a different type of observation. So the question
itself doesn't really make sense to me.

Executive summary: It depends.

Mike Simmons

Very loose requirements. What do you mean by satisfying views? Some are
satisfied with just spotting these objects, other aren't until they get the
details seen in photos. Even minimum aperture is a question, since younger
eyes can see fainter and more details once trained, because younger eyes are
normally more sensitive to low light levels and have sharper visions.

And the reason for asking this question is . . . ?
--
Yours Truly,
--- Dave

----------------------------------------------------------------------
'raid if you're afraid you'll have to overlook it.
Besides, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
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"Bill Meyers" wrote in message
...
Hello, all,
What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary for
satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers