Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy

M109 is a barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, approximately 83 million light-years away and catalogued by Pierre Méchain in 1781. Its distinctive elongated shape and asymmetric structure earned it the colloquial nickname ‘Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy’ among amateur astronomers. At magnitude 9.8 it is one of the fainter Messier objects, requiring dark skies and moderate aperture to observe visually. The galaxy is part of the Ursa Major cluster and shows evidence of past gravitational interactions with neighbouring galaxies.