Bode's Galaxy M81 (NGC 3031; mag 6.9) in Ursa Major will be well placed in the evening sky in coming weeks. On 19 February it will reach its highest point in the sky at around midnight local time, and on subsequent evenings it will culminate four minutes earlier each day.
From Columbus , it is visible all night because it is circumpolar. It will be highest in the sky at 00:32, 60° above your northern horizon. At dusk, it will become visible at around 19:16 (EST), 40° above your north-eastern horizon. It will be lost to dawn twilight at around 06:13, 38° above your north-western horizon.
At a declination of 69°03'N, it is easiest to see from the northern hemisphere but cannot be seen from latitudes much south of 0°S.
At magnitude 6.9, M81 is quite faint, and certainly not visible to the naked eye, but can be viewed through a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
The position of M81 is as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| M81 | 09h55m30s | 69°03'N | Ursa Major | 6.9 | 21'37" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 19 Feb 2020
| The sky on 19 February 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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8% 26 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Image credit
© Digitised Sky Survey (DSS); Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)