M106 is a wonderful little spiral galaxy. You'll find it almost 2 degrees south of 3 Canum Venaticorum amidst a small swarm of stellar gothams. My drawing captures a 129X in my 10-inch, f/4.5 Newtonian. M106 appears as an 8'x3' oval aligned roughly north-south. A stellar core region is seen as are two major spiral arms. The brightest of these reaches northward, curving northeast near its limit. The second arm reaches south-southeast. This Sb-type galaxy has an integrated visual magnitude of 8.4 and an average surface brightness of 22.3 magnitude per square arcsecond. NGC 4248, a 12.5 magnitude galaxy, is visible 12' due west of M106. Some fifteen 11th and 12th magnitude stars dot the field.