Charles Messier recorded the the coordinates and a brief description of M108 in his personal copy of his catalog but it does not appear in the published catalog. It was added to the catalog (along with m103 through m110) after his death.
M108 has neither a central bulge nor any pronounced core. It appears rather chaotic lacking any semblance of a spiral (even thought classified as an Sc) and with only a few H II regions and young stars. It does have a smoky heavy obscuration along the major axis.
M108 a member of the M51 (Ursa Major cloud), is at about 39 million light years and has a recession velocity of 772 km/sec.