The Cigar Galaxy & Bodes Galaxy Widefield (Darius Kopriva)

The Cigar Galaxy & Bodes Galaxy Widefield

On this widefield you can see the Glaxien M81 & M82 and the interstellar dust that surrounds it.

Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is a grand design spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away, with a diameter of 90,000 light years, in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to our galaxy, large size, and active galactic nucleus, Messier 81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers. The galaxy's large size and relatively high brightness also makes it a popular target for amateur astronomers.

M82 or the Cigar galaxy, shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.

Around the galaxy’s center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way galaxy. Radiation and energetic particles from these newborn stars carve into the surrounding gas, and the resulting galactic wind compresses enough gas to make millions of more stars. The rapid rate of star formation in this galaxy eventually will be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars. The starburst will then subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years.

M82 was discovered, along with its neighbor M81, by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774. Located 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, M82 has an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and is best observed in April. Although it is visible as a patch of light with binoculars in the same field of view as M81, larger telescopes are needed in order to resolve the galaxy’s core.

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Description: Some halos around bright stars could be reduced.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5029561
PixInsight job	8B13Y5S9C83PTZEUN80IY2P2QTSGUJ9O
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	09h54m57s.90
RA (top/left)	09h08m35s.21
RA (top/right)	09h26m15s.57
RA (bottom/right)	10h25m32s.57
RA (bottom/left)	10h39m15s.96

Dec (center)	+69°32′59″.9
Dec (top/left)	+73°43′40″.8
Dec (top/right)	+64°45′33″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+64°51′39″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+73°53′05″.1

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