NGC
2903 (Uppsala 5079, MCG 4-23-9, PGC 27077) is a nice spiral galaxy in Leo
with unusual visual detail. It is a 9.6-magnitude spiral of intermediate
orientation that subtends 12.6' x 5.5'. NGC 2903 lies some 22 million light
years distant.
I observed this galaxy in my 18-inch Dob in February 2000. Here are my notes from that session:
I picked this one at random. It looked interesting on the POSS DSS image, where it showed a bright core surrounded by a bright oval with arms emanating from it. It appeared that I might be able to see the arms in this one. At 82x it looked pretty good. I went to 166x to increase the contrast. What I saw was a bright oval embedded in a slight haze. The edge of the oval wasn't even--it had small bulges sticking out of it on opposite sides (one side in particular). I took these to be the beginnings of the spiral arms.David Knisely reported the following view in a ten-inch:
On NGC 2903, this galaxy is also one of my favorites, as it begins to show a wealth of light and dark detail at moderate to high powers. There almost seems to be a central bar-like feature near the middle made up of several brighter segments. I like 141x to 220x for viewing this one, as considerable mottling is visible with some spiral arc-like detail in the outer haze.
This image from the DSS shows a 30' x 30' field. North is down and east is to the right.
