Gravitational Waves

M81 & M82 - Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy

These two galaxies are engaged in cosmic dance nearly 12 million LY from Earth.
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M81 & M82 - Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy

These two galaxies are engaged in cosmic dance nearly 12 million LY from Earth.

M81 is one of the brightest and near perfect examples of a grand spiral galaxy visible from Earth and M82 is a "Starburst" galaxy and the most studied of it's type by scientists due to it's proximity to Earth.

The red jets emanating from the core of M82 are comprised of ionized hydrogen and radioactive filaments, visible evidence of the violent gravitational force that the interaction both galaxies had roughly 600,000 years ago.

The interaction of the two tidally locked galaxies intensified the shockwaves emanating down the spiral arms toward the core of M82. More force along the arms and dust lanes of M82 increases the rate at which dust and gas are condensing and the rate at which stars are forming. In the Cigar Stars form at around 10 times the rate that stars form in our galaxy.

Equipment:

*Takahashi TOA-130NFB with 645 Flattener
*iOptron CEM7O
*ASI6200MM and ASI6200MC
*Altair MG60 Guidescope and 130M guide camera
*Prima Luce Eagle 4 Pro, Sesto Senso 2 Focuser, and PLUS Mounting Hardware

SW for Control-Acquisition:

*NINA for Acquisition
*Pixinsight and Photoshop 2024 for Post Processing

Total Data-Time Integration:
*(Mono) 13hrs 45mins of Luminance and 6 hrs of Hydrogen Alpha
*(Color) 5hrs of OSC data for RGB

Thanks for looking!

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