Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Bode's galaxy  ·  Bode's nebulae  ·  M 81  ·  NGC 3031
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M81 Bode's Galaxy, Richard Francis
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M81 Bode's Galaxy, Richard Francis
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Description

M81, although appearing in Messier's catalogue, was not discovered by him, but by Johann Bode on New Year's Eve, 1774. He also discovered M82 at the same time. Like M82 it is about 12 million light-years away. Like most galaxies (including our own), it harbours a super-massive black hole at its centre, and in this case it is estimated to be the equivalent of 70 million times the mass of our sun, all compressed into a single, infinitesimally small point.

This image was taken in March 2018, just after i had completed acquisition of data for M82. These two galaxies are very close in the sky, but too far from my currect camera to capture both in a single frame.

Acquisition details:

Total exposure: 11.8 hours, 11 - 23 Mar 2018

Filters:

Red: 22x 600 sec

Green: 18x 600 sec

Blue: 16x 600 sec

Luminance: 15x 600 sec

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M81 Bode's Galaxy, Richard Francis