Messier 109

Wide supreme barred spiral galaxy Messier 109 is the 109th entry in Charles Messier’s significant catalog of interesting Nebulae and Superstar Clusters. Yow will in discovering it appropriate under the Wide Dipper’s bowl in the northern constellation United states Main. If truth be told, interesting dipper big name Phecda, Gamma United states Majoris, produces the glare at the upper appropriate nook of this telescopic frame. M109’s outstanding central bar affords the galaxy the appears to be like of the Greek letter “theta”, θ, a frequent mathematical image representing an angle. M109 spans a extraordinarily tiny angle in planet Earth’s sky though, about 7 arcminutes or 0.12 degrees. But that tiny angle corresponds to a big 120,000 gentle-One year diameter at the galaxy’s estimated 60 million gentle-One year distance. The brightest member of the now identified United states Main galaxy cluster, M109 (aka NGC 3992) is joined by spiky foreground stars. Three tiny, fuzzy bluish galaxies also on the scene, identified (top to backside) as UGC 6969, UGC 6940 and UGC 6923, are most likely satellite galaxies of the larger barred spiral galaxy Messier 109.