Hi Doug,
Nice one again !
Good to see someone other than myself is looking in on M61 from time to time -- I really like this face-on spiral galaxy that has the unusual "broken arms".
Take a look at an image like, this one for instance:
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/m61block.jpg
And you will see that the arms are not smoothly curved like most ordinary spiral galaxies but instead seem to be in broken segments -- almost like they are wrapped around a 50c piece or something that puts these squarish-looking "joints" in them. Pretty unusual. I think the smallest telescope that can show the indications of spiral structure in M61 is 30cm, while in 46cm under a pristine sky it is pretty straightforward.
Bit of a fan of M28 too -- dunno why, just am.
Best,
Les D
Contributing Editor
AS&T