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The only galaxies I can think of (not being an astronomer) are Andromeda and Milky Way. There are 51 near galaxies, but they all pretty much say "satellite of Milky way" or "satellite of Andromeda". There are 100k+ galaxies in the local supercluster, and that page seems to have a better list:

  • Corvus
  • Coma Berenices
  • Ursa Major
  • Virgo
  • Sculptor
  • etc.

If you had to rank them in order of prominence in the scientific community or in popular science, wondering what the top 10 or 20 galaxies would be (for which we have photos).

I am trying to come up with a list of images for educational purposes that are potentially somewhat familiar to laymen audiences, or which would be useful to introduce to laymen audiences.

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    $\begingroup$ You've taken the names ("Corvus", etc.) from the wrong column on that page: those are names of constellations the galaxies happen to be seen in, not the names of the galaxies themselves. $\endgroup$ – Peter Erwin Jun 2 '19 at 23:23
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    $\begingroup$ Also, I think the answer will be very opinion-based, which is generally frowned upon on this site. $\endgroup$ – pela Jun 3 '19 at 12:13
  • $\begingroup$ Technically we have photos of a lot of galaxies. It's just that "pixel #3546423 of Hubble Deep Field" doesn't have much academic value. $\endgroup$ – John Dvorak Jun 3 '19 at 13:14
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Any such list is going to be terribly subjective. Since I'm an astronomer who studies galaxies, I'll go ahead and throw out a subjective list of the more famous, photogenic, and/or scientifically well-studied galaxies. The first six are in the Local Group (LMC and SMC are satellites of the Milky Way, M32 is a satellite of Andromeda).

  • Milky Way
  • Andromeda (M31)
  • Large Magellanic Cloud
  • Small Magellanic Cloud
  • Triangulum (M33)
  • M32
  • Sombrero (M104)
  • Pinwheel (M101)
  • Whirlpool (M51a)
  • M64 (Black Eye)
  • M74 (NGC 628)
  • M81
  • M82 (Cigar)
  • M87
  • M100
  • NGC 891
  • NGC 1068 (M77)
  • NGC 1300
  • NGC 1365
  • Centaurus A
  • Cygnus A
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    $\begingroup$ Not quite in our neighbourhood (it's nearly 4 billion light years away), not a galaxy but rather a cluster of galaxies, and not the prettiest of images, but for scientific significance my favourite is the Bullet Cluster (1E 0657-558), as it provides strong evidence of the existence of dark matter. $\endgroup$ – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Monica Jun 3 '19 at 12:24

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