Messier 82. (astroeyes)

Messier 82.

Here's an image of M82, otherwise known as ARP 337, interacting companion to M81. Taken a couple of nights ago, through anything but perfect skies, I am somewhat surprised to have captured quite as much detail as is shown.

M82 is approximately 12 million light years distant and is approximately 150,000 light years from M81. It is showing the effects of a catastrophic encounter with M81 some tens of millions of years ago.

M82 is experiencing explosive star formation and is one of the brightest infra-red sources in the sky. It is also one of the strongest radio sources in Ursa Major. Magnitude 8.4, surface brightness 12.2, size 12' x 4'.

This image an integration of around 65 x 60 second unguided exposures through my 10" Newt. AstroArt 3 used for acquisition and some initial processing. This image highlights another of the pitfalls awaiting the imager. If you look closely you will notice that the stars aren't quite round. I didn't notice at the time but one of the set screws locking my ccd camera into the drawtube wasn't quite tight, meaning there was a slight, probably less than 1 degree, twist in the drawtube. This resulted in the flared stars. There are lots of things that can and do, go wrong for the astro-imager!!

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	Basic pending
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6721193
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Messier 82.

Messier 82.

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Messier 82.

Messier 82.

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

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