M81 and M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major

M81, Bode's Galaxy

Like M42 is a "tester" object for winter, M81 is a tester object for the spring. It's big and bright and there's lots of detail to bring up. In addition, if well-framed, M82 is often an added bonus on the outskirts of a large FOV.	Both of these two images are from the same dataset. The left one includes darks, flats, and bias frames (in addition to the lights). This one is just darks. I'm still working out the new workflow that involves FITS images and all these extra non-astronomy frames I have to shoot. Also, I find that my processing skills are delightfully random between nights, even on the same data. shrug.
M81, Galaxy in Ursa Major I decided to quit messing around with trying to get both galaxies in the field at once, and just concentrate on getting a good shot of M81. This is a 3-hour integration, unguided 3-minute subframes.

M82, The Starburst Galaxy

This is a "freebie" version of M82. It was way off in the badly vignetted border of the above M81 images (M81 was centered). But once I applied flat frames to the images, there was enough data in M82 for at least a "tester" image of it. I don't know what happened to the red. Don't ask.

M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major Since my shots of M82 are coming out a lot better than my shots of M81 at the moment, I decided that M82 deserved its own space. This is a crop out of a single 5 minute image.

M81 and M82

M81 and M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major This is my first attempt at this pair with Veronica. The image was shot under a 16-day moon. I'm impressed by both the amount of detail I was able to pick up, and by the color in M82. I can't wait to shoot these under a little less moonlight... Click here for a closeup of M82 by itself. Click here for the fullsize image.

M81 and M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major Another try at this pair. Starting to get some detail on the spiral arms on M81. More magnification wouldn't hurt; I have plenty of FOV to spare (this was cropped by about 66% from the original image)

M81 and M82, Galaxies in Ursa Major Edge-on galaxy (Cigar-shaped) M82 and neighbor M81. First shots in awhile. Got some good weather all the way through December and into January, finally took advantage of it. The reason the galaxies aren't cropped closer to the center of the photo is because I caught a third galaxy, totally by accident, in the lower right-hand corner. I'll figure out which galaxy it is one of these days... First try at these galaxies. They need longer exposures.