20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: Not, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: No, they are not NGC3395 and NGC3396
# 7: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 8: Not, tis not a winter constellation (IF you refer to observations in the evening )
# 9: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
#10: Not, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#11: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#12: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#13: No, it is not a four-legged animal
#14: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).

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Leo is a spring constellation, isn't it?
Also, it contains lots of galaxies.
But #13 rules it out. D'oh!

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Are they members of the NGC?

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Your parenthetical comment:
Indicates both that it is visible in winter mornings but not visible
in winter evenings. So it can't be circumpolar.

You tell me. You're the one who said it is circumpolar. I just
translated that statement from 20-questionese into English.

Leo is my paradigm for a spring constellation. It's the one that I
know is a spring constellation without having to think about it.

I Gave Serpens Caput as the example, though, because it contains
Hoag's Galaxy, which is a very rare, unusual type of galaxy that looks
something like your avatar, and has within it (in the distant background)
another galaxy of the same type. An extraordinarily unusual pair.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Sheesh, I overlooked that . I did't even think of the possibility because even if the Big Dipper is always visible to me here, I wouldn't consider it an Autumn Constellation - it sits low in the Northern sky and its has its heyday in spring, while the autumn zenith is ruled by Cassiopeia and Perseus.

In fact, my comment was quite innocent and trivial - it just referred to the fact that in spring at 5 in the morning you are seeing what you would consider a late summer/autmn sky in the evening.

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Yep, I assumed too much from my rushed Google effort. [see post #4379 (what a post no. ! Sure a lot of questions out there. ) ]

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Are they NGC 5953 and NGC 5954?

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Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: Not, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: No, they are not NGC3395 and NGC3396
# 7: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 8: Not, tis not a winter constellation (IF you refer to observations in the evening )
# 9: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
#10: Not, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#11: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#12: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#13: No, it is not a four-legged animal
#14: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).
#15: No, they are not NGC 5953 and NGC 5954.

Centaur, if you continue to check off the NGC for pairs of galaxies, I'll push y'all over 20 again with no effort at all

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I give up. I’ll rejoin this thread when we stop these children's games of trying to guess what someone is thinking and instead are presented with questions having educational merit.

__________________
Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

Centaur, I will certainly miss your participation. The comment you seem angry at was not meant as anything but gentle and friendly irony.

However, I take exception to your characterisation of this game (the current round of the game, specifically) as a "children’s game, trying to guess what someone is thinking" and, as you imply, as having no "educational value".

First, let me say I did not introduce the 20 questions format here, and I am not particularly fond of it; when I started this round, I had a very interesting pair of galaxies in mind the study of whose interaction is extremely educating and fascinating; at the moment when it was my turn I was unable to come up with a nicely clued riddle, so I did a round of 20 questions again for lack of a better idea. I tried to make up for the slow progress of this format by checking in on the questions regularly and promptly and by dropping a hint here and there.

In the process of chasing the pair of galaxies I sent you all looking for, several avenues of narrowing down can be pursued - trying to zoom in on the constellation (that was done, but on and off), trying to make out in which catalogue(s) the pair are or are not listed; trying to elucidate the type of relationship between those galaxies: Is there a strong tidal relation, is there a starburst, which kind of matter is being exchanged, are the galaxies - or one of them - active (specifically, is a quasar involved), what is a plausible distance range for the pair ("is z<2?"), among many. Having gotten a rough idea, it might be a good idea to browse the parent sites of this board to see if some galaxies fitting the bill have been discussed there in, say, the last year. This is a game, not an exam, and I am a total layman, so you can be quite certain that I won't send you on a fool's errand for some arcane galaxy pair that got one mention in the appendix of Astrophysical Journal in 1988 or so. The galaxies aren’t visually prominent, as I told you, so it is safe to infer that there is a story about these two galaxies; and in fact there is. It is very educating, and it is not that hard to find.

Another aspect is to have fun cracking the nut together. That is, seeing what strategy your fellow quizzers are pursuing. Can you help them along, can you expand on their line of reasoning, can you pick up a ball and play it back to them, can you use one of my side comments to get further (as Jeff did expertly, even though I inadvertently mislead him) etc?

You chose not to pursue these possible avenues; you checked in twice and took two direct guesses at two pairs in the NGC when the field was not very much narrowed down - in fact when you don't even know if these galaxies are in the NGC at all.

Now you seem to be angry at my – gently ironic, or that’s how I see it – remark that maybe this is not too promising a strategy at this point in the game. Your answer is calling the game childish and denying it any educational value.

I am sorry if I am not up to your standards, but I'll state explicitly that I strongly disagree with you here.

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As Centaur has bowed out of this round (see the above two posts), I think we have to regard his two attempts at a solution as retracted. Thus, the current situation is:

20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: No, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 7: No, 'tis not a winter constellation
# 8: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
# 9: No, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#10: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#11: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#12: No, it is not a four-legged animal.
#13: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).

I also edited some spelling and deleted my comment to # 7 (formerly # 8), as it was unhelpful and misleading (see my discussion with Jeff 6 posts back)

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My first two questions narrowed things down considerably for everyone. My latter two were leaps at the ultimate answer. Game theory is involved here. The strategy for winning Twenty Questions is different for when there is one player or many players, unless they are considered part of a team. In the present case, only one player is considered the winner who can pose the next question. Perhaps the person who receives the most “yes” responses should be deemed the winner, but that is not the situation here. A single player will try to narrow things down in a rational fashion. When there are multiple competing players, a player improves his chances over competitors by making a reasonable guess at the final answer after the possibilities have been somewhat narrowed, even while the probability of success remains less than 50%.

__________________
Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

The 20 question format has been one of "us against the poser". I don't recall presenting any rules of any kind that might be helpful to those who might enjoy a more competitive nature to it. Most here are happy to help one another reach the final answer within the 20 question limit. Often, some will intentionally allow another to have a shot at winning. Or, in my case sometimes, not have to come up with another clever question that may be time consuming, especially with this format.

This is an "all for one and one for all" approach that I think most will agree with is the appropriate setting. We also like to try various techniques to get the answer quicker, so I don't object to those who occasionaly try a riffle approach, compared to the shotgun method. If we wanted, we could always get the answer to questions like this one by cutting the RA and DEC ranges in half with each guess, but that would be too easy and cold.

I hope you hang with us, Centaur. There really are no losers here.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

I'll support that wholeheartedly. Thanks a lot, George. Centaur, I sincerely hope you'll be back during this round.

And sorry for my mistake re. the two narrowing-down questions you asked. I really did overlook that it was you who asked them, oh my...

I'll make some facts known so there is a good chance of solving the question in a realistic timeframe and before no. 20; after that, maybe we'll take a little break from Q20...

• The two galxies have a fascinating story about them, and we learned of it via BABlog and UT.
• They aren't in the NGC
• They are in Serpens Caput (I was totally flattened when Jeff hit the nail on the head there. Was he using some kind of magic or what? As he explained later, he was smart, but also was he lucky).

So what is the new #14 ?

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

I was away from my computer the day before yesterday and most
of yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I said to my mom and my sister
something I've said a few times before over the years, though I don't
recall if I've said it online: It's good to be smart, but it is better to
be lucky. My sister didn't much like that notion, but since I'm the
undisputed smart one in the family....

Or was that "smartass"? Whatever.

Nice discussion about how the game works, even if you thought you
were wrestling rather than discussing.

I haven't had many opportunities to play twenty questions. It is
certainly a children's game, and one of the best games I know of.
With straight trivia questions, generally you either know the answer,
and giving that answer is trivial, or you don't know the answer, and
you can't do anything. With twenty questions, an intelligent player
can make progress and has a good chance of winning even if he
knows nothing about the subject.

I hope that it is not and never will be possible for computers to
play twenty questions.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

The problem with asking straightforward questions with educational merit is that they can usually be googled within seconds. Adding a riddle or twist may seem childish but it does help to prolong the game.

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Sorry if my observation sounded a bit harsh, Arneb. I was in a somewhat foul mood for other reasons and vented about the twenty questions format being used here repeatedly. Perhaps it’s time to retire this old thread and begin two new ones: the first for the twenty questions game and the second for the more usual question and answer quizzes.

__________________
Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

Then the question would be do we want to prolong each game, or have a quickly paced parade of new subjects? My earlier suggestion to split into two threads may be the answer. The trick to posing questions that may not be immediately googled is to find matters deeply buried in books (remember them?) or that require calculation.

__________________
Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

My solution is to let you do the Googling, then I read what you find.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Here's a question:

Arneb, were you involved in discussion on BAUT about these two galaxies
after they were mentioned in a Universe Today article and/or Phil's blog?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Jeff, I won't count this question, as it's just a friendly personal inquiry . In fact, I wasn't involved, but then I hardly ever am. Most times, I just read. As I am not a professional, I rarely feel I have something to contribute.

Centaur, there has been a definite tendency to make the questions harder and harder and to use up more time for them (the thread started in June 2005). 20 questions is just one manifestation of this trend (and I have nothing against it), so splitting the thread is probably not worth the while.

I suggest y'all beat this one to death quickly now and then we move one. I will try to pose crisper questions when/if I get the chance next time...

So:
20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: No, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 7: No, 'tis not a winter constellation
# 8: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
# 9: No, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#10: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#11: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#12: No, it is not a four-legged animal.
#13: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).
(uncounted: No, I didn't discuss them when they were discussed on the parent sites)
#14: ...

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So?

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

It may be that the galaxies you picked are so arcane that the only way to
identify them is by Googling for Galaxies. Aside from that, the only thing I
can think to do is zero in on their location, which, as has been said, is a
pretty lame way to play the game.

How about this for a question:

Are the galaxies familiar enough that I probably know of them without
having to look anything up?

Have a fun time trying to answer that accurately!

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: No, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 7: No, 'tis not a winter constellation
# 8: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
# 9: No, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#10: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#11: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#12: No, it is not a four-legged animal.
#13: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).
(uncounted: No, I didn't discuss them when they were discussed on the parent sites)
#14: No, Jeff, not even you would know these two galaxies just like that. To my knowledge (adeded value here) they aren't in the Messier catalogue, the NGC, the IC or even in the 2MASS catalogues.

I humbly suggest you try the avenues I laid out in my long answer to Centaur. I found a google search that gives you the answer a bit further down using only search terms that have already been mentioned.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Hey, is this Arneb Home Alone?

Next hint: Think Death from the Skies, if not literally, then at least the idea.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

It appears you are hinting toward a quasar pair that has a beam aligned with us.

A pair of quasars?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

George, two points - I don't follow you quite in your first sentence, and I'll rephrase your question in order not to create unnecessary terminological confusion.

20 questions (yes-no) again: What is the pair of astronomical objects (i.e, two objects closely spaced on their own length scale) I am thinking of?

# 1: No, they are not within our own galaxy
# 2: No, they are not within our Local group of galaxies.
# 3: No, none of the constituent parts is what an amateur astronomer would consider "prominent".
# 4: Yes, the two objects are galaxies.
# 5: No, the galaxies do not have an informal name which is the name of an animal.
# 6: Yes, they are in the Northern celestial hemisphere
# 7: No, 'tis not a winter constellation
# 8: No, it is not a summer constellation as per this list.
# 9: No, to my knowledge they are not members of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies
#10: No, they are not in a circumpolar constellation (from Aachen).
#11: Yes, they are in a constellation named after a real animal.
#12: No, it is not a four-legged animal.
#13: Yes, it is in big ol' Serpens (one of them, that is).
(uncounted: No, I didn't discuss them when they were discussed on the parent sites)
#14: No, Jeff, not even you would know these two galaxies just like that. To my knowledge (adeded value here) they aren't in the Messier catalogue, the NGC, the IC or even in the 2MASS catalogues.
#15: Yes, they are a pair of active galaxies bonus: one is more active than the other)

__________________
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Shall we say, one more day and then I'll solve? Wold be a shame, such a beautiful object.

Hint: The two objects are known under one common designation.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Sometimes we just like to nibble, especially with the ones that are tough.

Is it below 10deg. declination?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

3C321?

BA's Blog

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