M81 & M82 (Timothy Prospero)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · HD85161 · HD85828 · HD86574 · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034 · NGC 3077

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M81 & M82

The Bode's Galaxy / Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away from us, it was discovered by Johann Elert Bode on 31 December 1774. It is estimated that M81 contains approximately 250 billion stars 😲😲

The Cigar Galaxy (known also as M 82 or NGC 3034) is an active galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major; it is about 12 million light years away and is associated with the larger and more famous M81. It is an excellent example of a starburst galaxy. Charles Messier described this galaxy as a nebulous object unsolvable in stars, close to M81 and with a very elongated shape; it was also observed by Johann Elert Bode in 1774 and by Pierre Méchain in 1779.

It was later re-observed by John Herschel, who described it as a sort of luminous "ray" with a composition that he could not know.

Lord Rosse was impressed by this object, describing it in enthusiastic terms as a cloud criss-crossed by several dark bands. Towards the end of the 19th century it was photographed for the first time and was described as an object seen through a slit.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4519369
PixInsight job	3I5SXIT596IOQ5VMSVWRP9WDGSBMEYXS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m38s.75
RA (top/left)	09h46m29s.24
RA (top/right)	09h47m26s.96
RA (bottom/right)	10h04m05s.72
RA (bottom/left)	10h04m28s.15

Dec (center)	+69°04′23″.1
Dec (top/left)	+69°52′50″.2
Dec (top/right)	+68°12′45″.1
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°14′07″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+69°54′22″.6

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M81 & M82

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M81 & M82

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Description

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