The Cigar Galaxy (M 82)

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Clic here for 60% size 2293x1564 (664 kB)

 

About this Image

The so called Cigar galaxy (M82) in Ursa Major is situated 12 million light years away.

Its core seems to have suffered dramatically from a semi-recent close encounter with M81, being in a heavy starburst and displaying conspicuous dark lanes. The spiral arms seem to have been striped off, leaving a distorted truncated structure.

M82 is well known for vast regions of young, hot stars in stellar nurseries. In visible light, the galaxy looks fairly normal, in H-alpha light, enormous streamers of ionised Hydrogen are visible, stretching 20,000 light years from the galactic plane in both directions. This turbulent explosive gas flow is also a strong source of radio frequencies.

900 minutes of exposure have been used for this image (personal record).

 


Technical Details
Optics

16" cassegrain in secondary focus at f/10

Mount MK-100 GEM
Camera SBIG STL-11000M at -30 - -20C, internal filter wheel
Filters Astronomik LRGB + H-alpha
Date Jan - March 2006.
Location Wildon/Austria
Sky Conditions mag 5-5.5 sky, good transparency;
Exposure L:R:G:B = 300:60:90 minutes (10-minute sub-exposures), 240 min Halpha (30-minute sub-exposures 2x2) at f/10;
combined with 210 min exposure at f/3
Processing Image aquisition in Maxim, image calibration, aligning, DDP in ImagesPlus; H-alpha added to red; color balance, curves, L blending in Photoshop;
north is up;