Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Bode's Galaxy  ·  Cigar Galaxy  ·  M 81  ·  M 82  ·  NGC 2976  ·  NGC 3031  ·  NGC 3034  ·  NGC 3077
M81, M82 and the IFN, Toni Font
M81, M82 and the IFN
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M81, M82 and the IFN

M81, M82 and the IFN, Toni Font
M81, M82 and the IFN
Powered byPixInsight

M81, M82 and the IFN

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Description

The galaxy M81 (Galaxy of Bode), is located in the center of the image. It's a spiral galaxy. Below and to the right (at 5 o'clock) is M82 (the Cigar galaxy). This is an irregular galaxy, greatly affected by close encounters with the galaxy M81. These encounters in the last hundreds of millions of years have fired star-forming regions into M82. Both M81 and M82 are located outside our galaxy, about 10 million light years away.
In this image, you can see how they are surrounded by faint nebulae, which are part of the IFN, the Integrated Flux Nebulae, which is part of our galaxy. This nebula, slightly above the plane of our galaxy, shines not reflecting the light of nearby stars, but of the Milky Way as a whole. Hence its name.

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M81, M82 and the IFN, Toni Font