MESSIER 81-82 - BODE'S AND CIGAR GALAXY (Stefano Attalienti)

MESSIER 81-82 - BODE'S AND CIGAR GALAXY

The M81 Group is a group of galaxies, located in the constellations of Ursa Major and Giraffe, which includes the galaxies M81 and M82, along with rather several other bright galaxies. The center of the group is located approximately at a distance of 10 million light years from Earth and therefore is one of the closest groups to our Local Group. M81 is estimated to contain approximately 250 billion stars, making it slightly smaller than our own Milky Way. This and the nearby irregular galaxy M82 are the most important members of the galaxy group of M81, of which M81 itself is the main member and it appears that the two galaxies met a few million years ago, causing the deformation of M82. Its distance is well known and has been estimated at 12 million light years, thanks to the discovery of a large number of Cepheid variables. M82 suffers the gravitational effects of its neighboring galaxy, the larger M81. These tidal forces have deformed M82 since about 100 million years ago. Involved caused a sharp increase in star formation phenomena. A few millions of years ago this galaxy had a close encounter with M81 and as a result of this, a large amount of gas poured into M82 and in particular its power plants. The most recent encounter between these two galaxies took place about 250 million years ago and caused a sharp spike in star formation in both galaxies, as evidenced by the distribution and age of the open clusters of the two galaxies. Two other powerful starburst phenomena subsequently occurred, the last of which was about 4-6 million years ago, causing the formation of star superclusters. The distance between the two galaxies is about 300,000 light years.

Original
Final
C

The refractors!
CMOS Imagers
Cloudy Nights
Constructive Critique Requested
Imagers of Italy
Suburban Astrophotography
ZWO ASI 2600MC PRO

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Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

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Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7063595
PixInsight job	ZPI9VWFSIO155P6AEU43C4BIDR1HS8LD
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m44s.180
RA (top/left)	10h01m10s.373
RA (top/right)	09h58m32s.400
RA (bottom/right)	09h50m04s.962
RA (bottom/left)	09h53m05s.496

Dec (center)	+69°19′35″.27
Dec (top/left)	+68°53′37″.55
Dec (top/right)	+69°55′43″.79
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°44′52″.100
Dec (bottom/left)	+68°43′17″.83

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