Galaxy
Bode's Galaxy (M81)
In Ursa Major (UMa) • Magnitude 6.9 • 26 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Bode's Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
One of the most photogenic spiral galaxies in the sky, with beautifully defined arms and a bright nucleus, just 11.8 million light-years away. The gravitational pull of its neighbour M82 — visible half a degree away — is so intense that it triggered a dramatic burst of star formation in M82 that is still ongoing today.
Bode's Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M81, N 3031 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Ursa Major (UMa) |
| Right ascension | 09h 55m 37s |
| Declination | +69° 04' 12" |
| Apparent magnitude | 6.94 |
| Surface brightness | 13.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 26.0 × 14.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 66° |
| Best imaging months | Nov, Dec, Jan |
How to image Bode's Galaxy
Bode's Galaxy sits in the constellation Ursa Major at right ascension 09h 55m 37s and declination +69° 04' 12". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a galaxy, Bode's Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.