M81 or Bode’s Galaxy and M82 or the Cigar Galaxy are a pair of interacting galaxies sometimes referred to as Bode’s Nebula, and are approximately 12M light years from earth. This pair galaxies were the first galaxies I was able to find visually with a telescope several years ago, so I always enjoy going back to both photograph and observe them visually.
From Wikipedia, “M82, with M81, was discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774; he described it as a “nebulous patch”, this one about 3⁄4 degree away from the other, “very pale and of elongated shape”. In 1779, Pierre Méchain independently rediscovered both objects and reported them to Charles Messier, who added them to his catalog.
A somewhat closer view of the two galaxies is below.
Processing
Processing was done in Pixinsight with the RC Astro plugins. This is was stretched with the multi-scale adaptive stretch.
Technical Card
Mount: Celestron AVX
Camera(s): ZWO ASI2600mc pro with ASI120mm guide camera
OTA: Apertura 60mm FPL-53 doublet with flattener
Filters: None
Exposure: 108 Lights @ 180 seconds
Annotated Image
As you can see, this image is filled with galaxies, many of them just barely showing in the noise. I’ll zoom in on a few of them.
NGC 3077 is a disrupted eliptical galaxy, interacting with the group, probably disrupted by M82.
There is another pair of galaxies in the corner of the main image. NGC 2961 and NGC 2959. Although these appear close together, they are quite distant, and there is not evidence that they are an interacting pair.
Sweetman Astrophotography 