NGC 2403, in Camelopardalis, is one of the best galaxies for small telescopes.
NGC 2403 is among the more conspicuous northern objects which Charles Messier missed when compiling his catalog. Thus its discovery was left to William Herschel in 1788. Allan Sandage detected Cepheid variables in NGC 2403 using the Hale telescope, making it the first galaxy beyond our local group to have Cepheids found in it.
NGC 2403 may be easily seen using 10 x 50 binoculars. This large, face-on galaxy has some similarity to M 33 in Triangulum. It is an intermediate spiral galaxy (type SAB) with an apparent magnitude of 8.9, and apparent dimensions of 21.9' x 12.3'. The northern spiral arm connects to NGC 2404.
This beautiful spiral galaxy is an outlying member of the M 81 group of galaxies, and thus about 10 million light years distant. As of late 2004, two supernovae have been reported in NGC 2403: SN 1954J and SN 2004dj.