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Object of the Week March 1, 2020 - NGC 2841
NGC 2841
UGC 4966
PGC 26512
Galaxy
Type: SA(r)b
Mag: 9.1
Size: 8.1’ x 3.5’
Constellation: Ursa Major
Many new moons ago in May of 2015, regular OOTW author Mark Friedman did a wonderful job of inspiring observers to always give an object a chance, regardless of aperture and object magnitude. Mark was adamant to always ‘give it a go’ regardless of any preconceived notions. Later in his post, Mark elected to teach us about flocculent spiral galaxies and highlighted a beautiful galaxy as his own OOTW that week – NGC 3521 in Leo. (That post can be found here) This week, I’d like to not just focus on another flocculent spiral, NGC 2841 in the Great Bear, but I’d like to remind readers to never pass up on an object because certain sources may influence them to not even try making an attempt.
Located near the border with Lynx in the Bears’ “toes” and lying approximately 46Mly distant, NGC 2841 is a massive 9th magnitude galaxy in UMa containing some 500 million solar masses. Discovered by William Herschel in 1788, NGC2841 spans 130,000 ly and is a ‘flocculent’ spiral that exhibits a prominent inner ring-like structure with patchy, disjointed spiral arms with no indications of containing a bar. Not to repeat Mark and his post, but comparing M33 to M51 is a good visualization to help illustrate a flocculent spiral (M33) to one that is not (M51).
Reminiscent to many of M31, NGC 2841 sits inclined to our line of sight, displaying a rather bright, bar-less core. Elongated NW to SE, the core brightens rapidly, nearly stellar in appearance. Observers have even noted spotting it from a dark site in 10x50 binoculars. Side note: NGC2841 is also the anchor galaxy for the NGC 2841 group, a small group of galaxies containing NGC 2681, 2541, 2500, 2552 and 2537 (de Vaucouleurs).
In closing, I’d like to reiterate a little bit of what Mark mentioned in his post. Please do not ever become intimidated by an object. The purpose of what we do here at DeepSkyForum is to help inform, educate and share all of our collective knowledge about the hobby we all love to do. I’m certain I speak for all visitors, registered and not, that visual observing is a life-long pursuit that only improves with practice and patience. It only advances our skill sets to push our limits as observers. Visual deep sky observing is unique in that no two nights are identical. We’ve all had those nights where seeing and transparency wouldn’t allow a decent view of M81 in a 30”. Then, some nights are so good, that it permits us to see something crazy like Mayall 2 in something like a 6” scope. You just never know.
Yes, DeepSkyForum really does focus on exactly what our name implies – deep sky objects. But don’t be dismayed. You never know what an object will reveal until you give it a shot. Sometimes it’ll be a faint, featureless shmutz. That’s part of the game we love. But other times, it may be the object of the evening. But you won’t know until you….
“give it a go and let us know!”
Attachment 3808
©Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
