M81 and 82 (Samara)

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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M81 and 82

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M81 and 82

Discovered by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774, M81 is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. It is located 11.6 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major and has an apparent magnitude of 6.9. 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. I took this image from my backyard observatory in Ohio. the equipment breakdown is below: Astro-Physics Mach1 MountTEC 140 ED APO paired with Astro-Physics QUAD TCC reducer @ F/5Atik 460 ex mono cameraAstrodon LRGB and H-Alpha filtersZWO EAF auto focuserPegasus Powerbox Ultimate 16x600 sec blue13x600 sec green24x600 sec lum20x600 sec red47 x 900 sec Ha Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop CS5

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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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
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Star trails
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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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5787468
PixInsight job	NF713A9NQPTIJ9YPYJFM3TA3C2Z69G86
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m32s.40
RA (top/left)	09h50m58s.80
RA (top/right)	09h51m34s.90
RA (bottom/right)	09h59m53s.84
RA (bottom/left)	09h59m41s.90

Dec (center)	+69°18′39″.8
Dec (top/left)	+69°46′09″.1
Dec (top/right)	+68°49′05″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°50′44″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+69°47′51″.9

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M81 and 82

M81 and 82

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M81 and 82

M81 and 82

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