M109 (Galaxy)
A barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, 0.6° from Phecda, the star at the bowl of the Big Dipper. Its distance is still uncertain: published estimates by different methods run from about 48 to 88 million light-years.
Galaxy in Ursa Major. Magnitude 9.9.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 44° above the northern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 40° above the northern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 19 Mar, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 0.6° south-east of Phecda.
- 10x50 binoculars: Just detectable in binoculars from a dark site, as a faint smudge.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): A faint oval with a brighter centre; keep Phecda just outside the field so its glare does not hide it.
- A camera: Tiny on camera: it needs 2,000 mm or more of focal length on a tracking mount.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 8.1′ × 5.6′, 26% of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Brightness: magnitude 9.9. Fainter than the faintest stars in Georgetown (4.3) and Lethem (6.0): binoculars or a telescope.
- Distance: 60 million light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 60 million years ago.
- True size: 150,000 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 150,000 years.
Apparent size from OpenNGC (Mattia Verga), CC-BY-SA-4.0.
What it is made of
- Type
- Barred spiral galaxy
What is in it, not measured:
- Stars: an older central bulge and a disc of younger stars
- Gas and dust: in the spiral arms, where new stars form
- Dark matter: inferred from how fast it spins
How we know: Distance from the median of 26 published estimates by several methods (no two direct ones agree to combine): NED-D (NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, redshift-independent distances), median of 26 estimates: 19.25 Mpc, 14.60-27.00 Mpc (16th-84th percentile); e.g. 2016AJ....152...50T, 2014MNRAS.444..527S, 2013AJ....146...86T; retrieved 2026-10-21. True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0), commit 4e2398a2).
More deep-sky objects: Galaxy M106 · M108 (Galaxy) · M94 (Galaxy) · Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) · Sunflower Galaxy (M63) · Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)