Q:

What are the most popular galaxies for which we have images?

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.

A:

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

