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| M-108, (Messier 108) or NGC 3556 |
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An edge-on, very loose spiral galaxy. It can be fairly
easily spotted with 10x50 binoculars, and with an 8" or larger scope is a
great object showing quite a bit of detail. It's easy to find too, located
quite near the outer lower star of the big dipper's bowl (Named Merak, the
second brightest star of the big dipper). It's just a little bit away from
that star toward the other lower bowl star. If you have an 8" or larger
scope you might also notice the nearby Nebula M97 which is less than a
degree further on from M108. Somewhat unusual for a galaxy of this size, it doesn't seem to have much of a central bulge. The many and sometimes large dark areas indicate that it is unusually dusty. The pink areas are large clouds of ionized hydrogen within which new stars are forming. The blue areas, such as the one on the left is where stars have formed and had time to blow the surrounding gas away. M108 is about 45 million light years away, and about 8 arc seconds wide. It is part of a loose gravitational grouping of galaxies that includes M109, just on the other side of the other bottom dipper star. |
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10"
F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, Canon 40D at prime focus |