URSA MAJOR
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Messier 81 (Bode’s Galaxy)
Constellation: Ursa Major
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
A good place for beginners to start is with the famous group of stars known as the Big Dipper. It forms part of the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Locate the four stars that make up the ‘bucket’ and then take the bottom-left star, Phecda, and the top-right star, Dubhe. Now extend the line between them upwards until it has roughly doubled in length. You should find Bode’s Galaxy lurking very close by. As it is quite big and bright, it shouldn’t be too tricky to hunt down with binoculars.
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Messier 82 (Cigar Galaxy)
Constellation: Ursa Major Type: Starburst galaxy
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
This is very close to Messier 81 – less than a degree away. It may not be as bright as Messier 81, but the two galaxies are thought to be pulling on each other with their gravity. It’s thought this is the reason behind Messier 82’s starburst activity. In January 2014, one of the nearest supernovae to Earth in decades, SN 2014J, went off here.
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Messier 108
Constellation: Ursa Major Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
Small telescope
Return to the four stars making up the bucket of the Big Dipper. The bottom-right star is called Merak. Travel below but parallel to the line that would take you back to Phecda on the opposite side of the bucket and soon you’ll encounter this barredspiral galaxy. It’s not as bright as the last two, so you’ll likely need a telescope.
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Messier 109
Constellation: Ursa Major Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
Continue along that line heading towards Phecda. Less than a degree beyond that star is the home of Messier 109. It’s towards the borderline of binoculars, so depending on your viewing conditions you might have to resort to a small telescope. It’s a barred-spiral galaxy located 83.5 million light years away from us.
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Messier 101
Constellation: Ursa Major Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
Start from Phecda and climb the left-hand side of the bucket to reach Megrez. Now move along the stars that comprise the handle of the Big Dipper
– or the tail of the Great Bear – until you reach the last two stars in the tail, called Alkaid and Mizar. Locate the halfway point between them and draw a perpendicular line upwards, travelling about half the original distance between Alkaid and Mizar. Here you’ll find the Pinwheel Galaxy. It’s about 70 per cent larger than our Milky Way and is seen face-on to reveal all its glory.
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Messier 88
Constellation: Coma Berenices Type: Spiral Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope From Messier 100, move three degrees left towards the seventh-magnitude star HIP 60960. Less than a degree further on you’ll encounter Messier 88, a beautiful spiral galaxy. It sits about 60 million light years away from us and was the location of a supernova that exploded in 1999.
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Messier 100
Constellation: Coma Berenices
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars
Find Chertan in Leo and then proceed towards Denebola, the tail star of the Lion. Keep going along the same line and leave the constellation of Leo. You are now entering a region crammed full of galaxies. There are many to see here, but we’ve picked out a few to note in particular. Messier 100 sits pretty much equidistant between the faint stars HIP 60672 and HIP 60210.
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Messier 51 (Whirlpool Galaxy)
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars
Head below the tail of Ursa Major and you enter the small constellation of Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). Beneath the star at the end of Ursa Major’s tail you’ll find one of the most beautiful galaxies in the sky and the first to be classified as a spiral. It’s actually two galaxies interacting with each other: Messier 51 and NGC 5195.
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Messier 106
Constellation: Canes Venatici Type: Spiral Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars From Messier 51, make a beeline towards the first star in the hind legs of Ursa Major. Before you get there you will come across Messier 106. It’s also not too far from the midpoint of the line between Phecda and Cor Caroli, which is the brightest star in Canes Venatici.
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Messier 63
Constellation: Canes Venatici Type: Spiral Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars From Messier 106, head back towards Cor Caroli. Then head up to Messier 51. About a third of the way along this line and slightly left of it is Messier 63, part of a group of galaxies called the Messier 51 Group.
11
Messier 94
Constellation: Canes Venatici Type: Spiral Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars Head to Cor Caroli and trace a line towards Chara, the second-brightest star in Canes Venatici. Just before you reach the midpoint, move off the line upward and at a right angle. You’ll find a galaxy most notable for its double-ring structure. We see it face-on, meaning it’s fairly bright.
12
Messier 95
Constellation: Leo
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: Small telescope
This constellation is easily identified by the backwards question mark shape that makes up its head and chest. Leo’s brightest star, Regulus, is the full stop at the base of the shape. Move from Regulus along the bottom of Leo’s body towards the star Chertan. Just beneath the halfway point of that line is the spiral galaxy Messier 95.
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Messier 96
Constellation: Leo
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
Medium to large telescope
This one can be tricky, even though it’s only half a degree away from Messier 95. That’s because it’s an intermediate spiral, neither face-on or edgeon. It’s tilted at about 53 degrees towards us. A telescope with an aperture above ten inches should do the trick.
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Messier 105
Constellation: Leo Type: Elliptical
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
Head back from Messier 95 and Messier 96 towards the line between Regulus and Chertan. Before you get there and slightly to the left you will see the elliptical galaxy Messier 105. This elliptical is also pretty close to another galaxy, NGC 3384.
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NGC 3628
Constellation: Leo Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope Travel back to the line between Regulus and Chertan and move along it until you reach the latter. Take a left at a right angle and you will encounter
NGC 3628, also known as Sarah’s Galaxy, the first in a famous trio of galaxies. At a magnitude of around +10, you’ll probably need a telescope rather than binoculars. William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus, found it in 1784.
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Messier 66
Constellation: Leo Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
10x50 binoculars
Just half a degree below NGC 3628 sits Messier 66, the second member of the Leo Triplet. Despite being an intermediate spiral, it is still reasonably bright. In professional images of the galaxy, its most striking features are its thick dust lanes and spiral arms.
17
Messier 65
Constellation: Leo Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope The final member of the
Leo Triplet sits less than half a degree to the right of Messier 66. Also an intermediate spiral, there’s evidence the three galaxies have been interacting with each other gravitationally, explaining Messier 65’s slightly warped shape.
18
Messier 86
Constellation: Virgo Type: Elliptical Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars Find Messier 88 again and hop to the star HIP 60960 before dropping down into Virgo by following a line headed straight for the ground. You want to lower your gaze by about two degrees to find the elliptical galaxy Messier 86. Unlike many others, this galaxy is slowly getting closer to the
Milky Way.
19
Messier 84
Constellation: Virgo Type: Lenticular Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars Once you’ve found Messier 86, finding Messier 84 shouldn’t be as difficult. It is the next galaxy along on the right, and it shares an almost identical brightness. Observations of Messier 84 have shown two jets emerging from the galaxy’s central region, implying the presence of a supermassive black hole.
20
Messier 87
Constellation: Virgo Type: Elliptical Minimum optical aid: 10x50 binoculars Move from Messier 84 and cut under Messier 86 towards the star HIP 61051. The giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 should be in the same field of view. A rugbyball-shaped blob rather than a flat disc, it boasts a central black hole weighing nearly 7 billion solar masses. Our galaxy’s is just 4 million solar masses.
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Messier 89
Constellation: Virgo Type: Elliptical Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope The density of galaxies in this patch of sky means that Messier 89 is just half a degree directly below Messier 90, but unlike its spiral companion, it’s an elliptical. Elliptical may be a bad description, however, as it seems – at least from our viewpoint on Earth – to be almost perfectly spherical.
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Messier 58
Constellation: Virgo
Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope
Drop half a degree down from Messier 89 and move a degree to the left. This is the approximate position of spiral galaxy Messier 58. It’s at a distance of 68 million light years from us.
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Messier 90
Constellation: Virgo Type: Spiral
Minimum optical aid:
Medium to large telescope
From Messier 87, travel up to the left at an angle of roughly 45 degrees towards HIP 61416. Less than a degree further along that line is Messier 90. The galaxy is thought to boast a thousand globular clusters surrounding it, whereas the Milky Way only has around 150.
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Messier 59
Constellation: Virgo
Type: Elliptical
Minimum optical aid: Medium to large telescope
Draw a line between Messier 58 and Virgo’s star Vindemiatrix. Move about a degree along this line to find Messier 59. It has an almost-identical brightness to Messier 58, but is an elliptical galaxy rather than a spiral.
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Messier 60
Constellation: Virgo
Type: Elliptical
Minimum optical aid:
Medium to large telescope
Messier 60 can be found less than half a degree away from Messier 59 in the direction of Vindemiatrix. At around +9.0, it’s brighter than the two other galaxies in this little group. However, you are still likely to need a telescope to see much, especially if your viewing conditions aren’t perfect.