(2024 improved image, 2023 description, updated)

It's Galaxy Season!

Earth's position in orbit around the sun is bringing the northern hemisphere into the summer season. It's also giving us a view of space beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy. It's a good chance to look at other galaxies, to envision what our own might look like.

This is Bode's Galaxy (M81). Perhaps the most beautiful galaxy close enough to view well. It's 45,000 light years away and about as old as the universe. It contains over 250 billion stars!

This is another sky feature that most of us shoot every year, trying to outdo previous efforts. And, indeed, I think this 2024 image is my best yet. The detail is pretty amazing given how far away it is.

M81 is pretty large and bright in the sky, so it's not surprising that it was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode in the winter of 1774, during the first golden era of telescopes.

"Elert?" That's a first for me.

This one has a large eye, or nucleus, and two well formed, symmetrical spiral arms. Seen at an angle, the oval shape is very pleasing. Almost looks like a polished jewell with the intense nucleus glowing from within the center.

The galaxy shows little evidence of absorbing others and almost looks pristine. 

Almost, but not quite. 

A nearby galaxy, named, predictably, M82 (not in this image), has grazed past M81. You can see the disturbance in the bottom spiral. M82 lost its outer spirals to M81, but somehow stole a bunch of M81's hydrogen gas. So life hasn't been perfect for this galaxy. 

But it doesn't show much.

Also notable are the reddish spotches along the spirals. Just like our own nebula, these areas are irradiated hydrogen clouds. And they are dense enough to produce new stars. So M81 is still quite active.

I wonder if there is, among the billions of stars, life on that galaxy, too. We'll never know, but it somehow seems likely. And any intelligent life might well be looking at us, wondering the same thing.

Tonight I'm processing this image to Michel camilo's jazz piece, 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶.