M81 and M82 are a famous pair of interacting galaxies. They are located approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
They are popular targets for amateur astronomers. They are bright enough to be seen with binoculars. They often fit within the same telescopic field of view as they do in this 5″ refractor.
As the pair are circumpolar, I chose to end my nightly winter sessions with this pair. I’ll add more data if the opportunity arises. This will happen over the remainder of our winter as we head into galaxy season. Imaged from my driveway with a wide-field Esprit 120ED refractor telescope and ZWO ASI2600MC camera atop an Eq6r Pro mount.
M 81 is commonly known as Bode’s Galaxy. It is a “grand design” spiral galaxy discovered by Johann Bode in 1774. It features a bright nucleus and well-defined spiral arms filled with blue star clusters and pinkish hydrogen gas clouds.
M 82 is known as the Cigar Galaxy due to its elongated, edge-on appearance, M82 is a prototypical starburst galaxy. It is undergoing an intense period of star formation, creating new stars 10 times faster than the entire Milky Way. It is famous for its bright red filaments of ionized hydrogen gas. These filaments blast out from its central regions, driven by strong galactic winds from supernova explosions.
Astrobin link with all the capture details and an annotated image. There are actually a lot of galaxies in this photo.
