M81 and M82 - the latter of which astronomers used to think was an exploding galaxy
Did they look something like this?
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/C_SPRING/M81_M82.HTM
http://www.skyimager.com/imagedata/M81-M82_05-26-03.html
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/MegaPrime/MegaPrime-PR-AstroImage-M81M82.html
Data on M81 and M82:
http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m081gr.html
