M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy) (Drew Evans)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · HD85161 · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034

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M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

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M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

The beautiful galactic pairing of M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy) resides in the constellation of Ursa Major.

Captured in 29.5 hours from Bortle Class 4 skies near downtown Flagstaff, Arizona.

M81 and M82 are bright galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major and are surrounded by the extremely faint Integrated Flux Nebula (seen as a faint smoky cloud). M81 is on the left and M82 is to the right.

M81 is a spiral galaxy some 12 million light years away. M82 is also about 12 million light years and is undergoing massive starbursts in its core. It is the closest starburst galaxy to the Earth.

The Integrated Flux Nebula, or IFN, is composed of dust particles, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and other gases, and is located at high galactic latitudes above the galactic plane. The light is reflected starlight from many stars in the Milky Way, thus the term integrated. The nebula is very faint and is a challenge to image - a dark sky site being a must. There is extended red emission from the gases in the nebula, plus blue reflected light from the dust, which can give varied blue, red and purple colors.

OTA: Explore Scientific FCD100 Series 127mm f/7.5 Carbon Fiber Triplet ED APO Refractor

Mount: Celestron CGX-L

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro & ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Gain: 100

Cooling Temperature: -10 degrees celsius

Filters:
Astronomik L3 Luminance (258 x 300s = 21.5 hours)
Chroma 5nm Ha (32 x 900s = 8 hours)

Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI174MM Mini and ZWO M48 OAG

Control: ZWO ASIAIR Pro

Calibrated in Astro Pixel Processor ⁣ with darks and flats. Processed in Pixinsight and Lightroom.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

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

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	5485149
PixInsight job	RNV8T1U58MJ2SU0QOW2E27EUNCI4IBN9
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h56m01s.24
RA (top/left)	09h58m35s.27
RA (top/right)	10h02m45s.32
RA (bottom/right)	09h53m17s.14
RA (bottom/left)	09h49m34s.95

Dec (center)	+69°20′24″.4
Dec (top/left)	+68°37′29″.8
Dec (top/right)	+69°48′30″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	+70°03′08″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+68°51′22″.2

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M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

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M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) & M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

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