M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies (Orestis Pavlou)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's nebulae · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034

M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies, Orestis Pavlou

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M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

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M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

M81 & M82

Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

This was probably the most challenging image I have taken so far: Relatively low in the sky and directly above the city of Nicosia, which meant I had to 'fight' extreme amounts of light pollution from my location.

I finally managed to gather a total of ~7 hours of useful data.

Info on the objects:

M81 (right) is a spiral galaxy and is about half the size (diameter) as our own Milky Way galaxy, containing almost half the number of stars as well. Although it's smaller in diameter and hosts fewer stars, M81 has a supermassive black hole in its center that is about 15 times more massive than the one in our own galaxy. M81 is also the most distant galaxy to be (relatively) travelling towards us at this point (all the galaxies in greater distances are moving away from us).

M82 (left) is a 'starburst' galaxy: A galaxy undergoing extremely rapid and efficient star formation (creating stars very fast). It has huge filaments of hydrogen expanding well above and below the galactic plane. In this galaxy's center, stars are born 10 times faster than in the entire Milky Way, even though M82 is about 5 times smaller.

Both are about 12 million light years away from us and the two galaxies seem to have interacted with each other a few hundred million years ago. This gravitational interaction is suggested to have caused the shape irregularities in the two and the intense starburst observed in M82.

Equipment:

Telescope: Sky-Watcher ED100 Black Diamond

Camera: Canon 550D

Mount: Celestron AVX

Imaging details:

Location: Nicosia, Cyprus

Light frames: 118x180" and 15x300" (7 hours total)

47 Darks and 50 Flats

Dates: 14/03, 26/03, 22/04 & 03/05/2019

Imaged with APT

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2708267
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

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M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

M81 & M82 - Bode's & Cigar Galaxies

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