The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, M83, NGC 5236

Located on the border of Hydra and Centaurus, M83 is a rather large and bright face-on spiral galaxy (visual magnitude +8, among the 25 brightest in the sky). It is a fine example of a loosely wound barred-spiral galaxy with structure clearly visible to the eye when viewed through large telescopes. It is unusual for the fact that it appears to have an odd number of arms, which are clearly defined by HII regions, hot blue stars and lanes of dust. With NGC 5128 and a few other galaxies, it forms a small group about 10Mly away.