This grand design spiral galaxy is located 85 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici at a declination of +47 degrees. It is a magnitude 11.5 face-on spiral galaxy that spans 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 110,000 light years.
The beautiful structure features a bright core, a complex inner region, and an outer pseudo-ring (
type R1’) formed by the 2 spiral arms. My eyes see 2 faint bars across the central region, forming a faint X. Strangely, the bright ansae at opposite points of the inner ring (at 4 and 10 o'clock) do not line up with the ends of either bar.
This galaxy looks similar to
M96, including the dust lane streaming up and out of the core. NGC 5377 is only half as large as M96 to our apparent view, although its real diameter is larger.
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