Object: M82, or the Cigar galaxy, shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.
Around the galaxy’s center, young stars are being born ten times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way galaxy. Radiation and energetic particles from these newborn stars carve into the surrounding gas, and the resulting galactic wind compresses enough gas to make millions of more stars. The rapid rate of star formation in this galaxy eventually will be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars. The starburst will then subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years.
M82 was discovered, along with its neighbor M81, by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774. Located 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, M82 has an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and best observed in April. Although it is visible as a patch of light with binoculars in the same field of view as M81, larger telescopes are needed to resolve the galaxy’s core.
Taken: June 13, 2021
Telescope: Astro-Tech 14” RC with Starizona Apex-ED L 0.65x focal reducer
Mount: Paramount ME II
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro (cooled to 0C; Gain 100) Bin 1×1.
Guiding: ZWO ASI290MM-Mini with ZWO Off-Axis Guider (OAG)
Focuser: Moonlite Nitecrawler
Rotator: Moonlite Nitecrawler
Filters used: Optolong L-eNhance
Exposures: 70×180 seconds for a total exposure time of 3 hours 30 minutes; calibrated with 40 dark frames, 40 flat frames with 40 dark-flats.
Seeing Conditions:
Image capture and telescope control: Sequence Generator Pro and TheSkyX Pro
Processed with PixInsight, Photoshop CC 2022