M81 82

click here for larger image

These neighbouring galaxies are easily viewed through a small telescope and form an interesting contrast between the face on M81 and the brighter, thin, edge on M82. They lie about 11 million years distant.

Date: 8th 9th and 11th February 2008

M81 was captured over the 8th and 9th Feb (click here for details) I then took a wider field view using an ED80 with an AstroPhysics 0.67 reducer and pasted in M81 and Ha data for M82 (also captured on the 9th - click here for details) The wide field image is 42x1 mins each through CLS red green and blue filters unbinned