Widefield view of M81(right)and M82(left)

"The pronounced grand-design spiral galaxy M81 forms a most conspicuous physical pair with its neighbor, M82, and is the brightest and probably dominant galaxy of a nearby group called M81 group. A few tens of million years ago, which is semi-recently on the cosmic time scale, a close encounter occurred between the galaxies M81 and M82. During this event, larger and more massive M81 has dramatically deformed M82 by gravitational interaction. The encounter has also left traces in the spiral pattern of the brighter and larger galaxy M81, first making it overall more pronounced, and second in the form of the dark linear feature in the lower left of the nuclear region. The galaxies are still close together, their centers separated by a linear distance of only about 150,000 light years."- SEDS.ORG


Takahashi FSQ 106EDX on a EM200 Temma 2 mount controlled by The Sky 6 pro with Chuck's Temma driver
ST2000XM with CFW10, Astrodon I series LRGB filters
Exposure: Luminance: 6 x 10 mins, RGB: 6 x 10 mins each all binned 1x1
Image capture and calibration with Maxim DL. Final processing with PS CS2
Taken on March 2, 2008 in Jackson, Ohio