M109 is a beautiful barred spiral located about a 1/2 degree away from the lower left Big Dipper bowl star, Phecda. The distinctive bar running through the center of the galaxy is reminiscent of the Greek letter theta. There appears to be two spiral arms that wrap significantly around on each other, the lower arm appearing to be more "frayed" at the ends than the upper arm. The entire disk of the galaxy appears to be about 6 x 3 arc minutes in size.

North at 8 o'clock, East at 5 o'clock.