M81 and M82 cropped from wide field (Ian Dixon)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: 24 d UMa · Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 2959 · NGC 2961 · NGC 2976 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034 · NGC 3077 · The star 24UMa

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M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

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M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

I found some time to get out on this cool evening (3*C) and while the moon was really kicking out the wash, I decided to try my luck on these targets. I noted that I couldn't shoot at the sweet spot in this camera, eg, ISO800 - I had to image at ISO400.

I found the image was shifted to a slight defocus due to some pull exerted from my EP dew strap that I adapted to the lens... this fast Rokinon lens is so picky about the tiniest bump in focus. Thus my stars are not the best.

Dark skies (moonless!) are so much easier to image...🙂

Thanks for looking!

Ian

+++++++

From SkySafari 6:

"Messier 81 (NGC 3031) in Ursa Major is one of the most conspicuous spiral galaxies in the sky. It forms a physical pair with its neighbor, M 82, and is the dominant galaxy of the M81 group. Discovered along with M 82 by Johann Bode, and sometimes referred to as Bode's Nebula, M 81 is one of the easiest and most rewarding galaxies for amateur astronomers in the northern hemisphere."

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3486301
PixInsight job	8JC5E7T3US8D3CV046WTC53FFOJK3LA1
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	09h56m26s.98
RA (top/left)	10h18m53s.23
RA (top/right)	10h19m41s.64
RA (bottom/right)	09h28m35s.70
RA (bottom/left)	09h38m22s.100

Dec (center)	+69°18′07″.5
Dec (top/left)	+66°47′27″.3
Dec (top/right)	+71°56′17″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+71°34′27″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	+66°30′41″.0

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M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

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M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

M81 and M82 cropped from wide field

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