M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy (John Hayes)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Cigar Galaxy · M 82 · NGC 3034

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M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

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M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

It's bright, it's commonly photographed, and M82 is one of my favorite objects because there is so much going on. I started this image half heartedly late in February while I was waiting on another object to move into position. After some quick processing, I realized that I might be able to get a pretty good image--if I put some time into it. So starting in March I've been patiently gathering data up through this last week. Clouds, equipment problems, the moon, travel and all kinds of things stretched the project out way longer than I expected. Along the way, I managed to snag some of the best images I've ever taken. Those short runs of "good luck" often made me think that I had the process dialed in; before reality returned on the very next night when I just collected junk. I suppose it wouldn't be any fun if it was easy! This image includes only 49 of the 80+ images that I collected. Anyway, I think that the processing should "pretty close" but I always appreciate any observations or comments. This is a slightly rotated and cropped version of the original and it is amazing to see all the tiny images of distant galaxies in this area. There must be around one hundred contained in the original field.

Everything after Version D is re-process from 61 subs (I'll have to figure out how much exposure that is.) This image is composed of some of the best data I've ever taken and I've never been super happy with the processing. So, this new, re-processed data is done mostly in PI with maybe only 5% of the processing done in PS. As usual, I have to keep fooling with it so let me know if you like it...C&C is always welcome.

John

Cloudy Nights

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3420682
PixInsight job	5WKVN8JANN5I3O6ZIRUWCR19N49MBEPR
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	09h55m54s.761
RA (top/left)	09h58m46s.102
RA (top/right)	09h55m16s.470
RA (bottom/right)	09h53m02s.996
RA (bottom/left)	09h56m32s.604

Dec (center)	+69°40′53″.37
Dec (top/left)	+69°38′26″.20
Dec (top/right)	+69°55′35″.59
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°43′09″.93
Dec (bottom/left)	+69°26′10″.22

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M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

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M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

M82, The Mysterious Cigar Galaxy

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