Spiral galaxy
Ursa Major
RA 11h 18m 13.4s
DEC +53d 26m 37s
Magnitude 10.4
Size: 4.5 arc minutes

I’ve observed NGC 36531 only once with my 28 inch scope, but I think it’s an object that will show its spiral arms to scopes much smaller. My notes from May 2015 read:

“This is a beautiful face on galaxy! Just south of the Big Dipper’s bowl, it’s big and relatively bright. One spiral arm is pretty straight and is the brightest part of the galaxy save the core. 253x, 21.24 SQM.”

Arp27_crop.jpg Arp27_cropinvert.jpg

Halton Arp’s notes:

“Another Spiral Galaxy with One Heavy Arm. The heavy arm is the nearly straight one above the core, cutting across the general sweep of arms, heading just south of east. Also note the faint one extending out on the north side, and the faint halo on the east side.”

big_arp27.jpeg

Located about 54 million light years distant, 3631’s prominent heavy arm will probably be the first detail you’ll see in the spiral disk – it’s pretty bright for a spiral arm. Under a really good sky I’ll bet it’s visible with a 16 inch scope – but no doubt someone here has seen it in a smaller scope. Also look for a bright knot near the heavy arm (left side of my sketch) which appeared pretty star-like to me.

"GIVE IT A GO AND LET US KNOW"