Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Bode's Galaxy  ·  Cigar Galaxy  ·  M 81  ·  M 82  ·  NGC 3031  ·  NGC 3034
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Bodes Galaxy (Messier 81) and the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)
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Bodes Galaxy (Messier 81) and the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Bodes Galaxy (Messier 81) and the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)
Powered byPixInsight

Bodes Galaxy (Messier 81) and the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82)

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Description

Over the past weekend, Rochester experienced something rare - four clear nights in a row! While it is true that the moon did not make for the best time for astro imaging, I had to take advantage of the rare clears skies and so I had both of my imaging platforms out catching photons every night!



The first image I am ready to share from this series is M81 and M82. I have been wanting to image these two beautiful galaxies for a while now and I finally got my chance!



Messier 81, also known as NGC 3031 and Bode's Galaxy, is a beautiful spiral galaxy located 12 Million light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode on 31 December 1774, thus the common name of Bode's Galaxy. M81 is the largest galaxy in a group of 34 galaxies, known appropriately enough as the M81 Group.



Messier 82, also known as the NGC 3034 and as the Cigar Galaxy, and is also located 12 million light years away and is part of the M81 group of galaxies. M82 is an extremely luminous galaxy - being five time brighter than our own Milky Way, and has a core that is 100 time brighter! This is due to intense star formation caused by gravitational perturbations from interactions with M81. M82 is known for its complex network of dusty filaments that extend to the side of the galaxy.



This particular image is the result of 191 subframes with an exposure of 180 seconds, for a total integration time of just over 9.5 hours. These frames were taken over three nights.

I would really like to image this again using narrowband and see if I can get a better mage of the tendrils from M82! - A fun future project…..



Details for this image:



191 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1, unity gain @ -15C. (Total integration of 9.55 hours).



50 Bias exposures

34 Dark exposures

45 Flat Darks

30 Flats taken each night, each nights data was calibrated to these flats.



Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO

Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61DPHII

Guide Scope Focus Motor: ZWO EAF

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

Main Scope Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

Field Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

Mount: Ioptron CEM60

Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, and much swearing…..

Thanks for looking!

Pat

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Bodes Galaxy (Messier 81) and the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)