| Intermediate
Spiral Galaxy
aka NGC 4258, PGC 39600, MCG 8-22-104, Uppsala 7353 Integrated Visual Magnitude: 9.1 Apparent Diameter: 17' x 6.5' |
Of M106, Walter Scott Houston wrote, "Descriptions of its visual appearance vary considerably." He goes on to offer descriptions that vary from a "very bright parallelogram shape" to "needle-like." Burnham's doesn't even recognize M106 as a Messier, listing it as NGC 4258 instead perhaps because this is one of the "controversial" objects added to Messier's list long after his death.
Regardless of its described appearance, this is a very nice bright spiral galaxy. To me it's appearance in a 6" is rather like M31 as seen in binoculars. Look for a bright core and hints of structure. Averted vision will show a faint outer envelope. The nearby NGC 4248 appears as a faint star with a hint of nebulosity surrounding it. To the west is the 12th magnitude NGC 4217, which may be briefly glimpsed using averted vision.
The view in a 6" at 50x.
North is down, East is to the right.
In my 18-inch M106 is very beautiful at 97x. Again it reminded me a bit of M31, with a bright, elongated nucleus. Interestingly, this nucleus appears to be offset in direction from that of the surrounding oval. Some observers have reported seeing the two opposing spiral arms.
The field surrounding
this galaxy is terrific. Visible in the same 97x field is NGC 4248,
a smaller, 13th mag edge-on spiral with about the same surface brightness
as M106. Just beyond NGC 4248 lies a beautiful pair of 15th mag galaxies,
a little reminiscent of the famous Siamese Twins (NGC 4231/2). Also
nearby lies the nice 12th mag edge-on spiral NGC 4217, which also has about
the same mean surface brightness as M106, although I found it to be considerably
fainter at the eyepiece. This galaxy lies near some brighter stars
which I found to be rather distracting.
| Millennium
Star Atlas Vol II Chart 594
Sky Atlas 2000 Chart 7 Uranometria 2000 Vol I Chart 74 |
