Derby and District Astronomical Society



Messier 82 (NGC 3034)
The Cigar Galaxy

Irregular Galaxy in Ursa Major
RA 09h 55m 48s  Dec +69° 41' 00"

[Messier Index]



The following image of M81 and M82 was captured by Steve Chambers on the 25th July 2023. Steve used a DWARF II Smart Telescope, stacking just 20 x 15s exposures on the camera. No filter was used, and darks were auto-generated on the camera. No post processing has been applied. The image is centered on M81, and M82 is visible in the one o'clock position above that.   Image Credit: Steve Chambers.



Separate images of M81 (left) and M82 (right) were captured by Peter Branson on January 5th and January 12th 2022, and comprise 110 minutes total exposures of M81 and 135 minutes in total for M82. The camera used was a ZWO ASI533 cooled colour camera together with a 102mm TS Optics Photoline f7 telescope with a Hutech IDAS light pollution filter and field flattener attached mounted on an NEQ6 mount. A filter wheel fitted with LRGBHa filters was used to capture the L and Ha component (for M81). The two square frame images were combined in Microsoft Images Composite Editor (ICE). Peter says - "I'm experimenting with my new ASI533 camera and, although it's a colour camera, I've been taking images through an L filter and an Ha so that I can add extra Ha detail to the images if necessary. Although I can get both of these galaxies in a single frame I decided to image them separately and then combine the results. I thought I would try and make the panoramic view using Microsoft ICE to see what would happen knowing there was a little bit of overlap in the two images. The result is what you see here - there's no additional processing - I was amazed!"  Image Credit: Peter Branson.




This image of M82 (right) and M81 (left) was taken by Dave Selfe on the 16th April 2020. Dave used a Nikon D750 camera attached to a Skywatcher Esprit 100 ED f/5.5 Super Apo Triplet Refractor and his new Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro Mount. The images are unguided and were stacked 150 x 10 second at ISO 1000.  Image Credit: Dave Selfe.




Chris Callaway captured this image of M82 (left) and M81 (right) on the 21st February 2019. It is an RGB image comprising 11 x 5 minutes per channel, taken with a Takahashi 106, an Atik 16200 camera with Atik filter wheel and filters, and the mount was a Paramount MyT.  Image Credit: Chris Callaway.




The following sequence of images of M82 were taken by Peter Branson between January and June 2014. They show the development of the supernova that erupted in M82 on January 22nd 2014. The first image shows the galaxy prior to the supernova going off, while the others show its development and dimming over time. You will have to scroll to the right to see them all! The supernova is the right-hand star of a pair of stars in the bottom half of the galaxy. Another closeup with the supernova labelled is shown further down the page. The images were taken using a Canon 1100D camera attached to a TS Photoline ED102 refractor telescope with field-flattener and Hutech IDAS light pollution filter attached. The telescope was guided using an Orion Mini autoguider controlled by PHD software.  Image Credit: Peter Branson.




Peter Branson took this image of M82 (right) and M81 (left) on the 26th March 2014. The image is a stacked composite of 26 individual frames each of 120 seconds exposure at ISO 1600. They were taken with a Canon 1100D camera attached to a TS Photoline ED102 refractor telescope with field-flattener and Hutech IDAS light pollution filter attached. The telescope was guided using an Orion Mini autoguider controlled by PHD software. The separate images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and the final image was further processed in Gimpshop. The supernova that erupted in M82 in January 2014 is visible in the image, and labelled in the close up shown below the main image.  Image Credit: Peter Branson.




The irregular galaxy M82 (NGC 3034) lies to the right of this image by Adrian Brown, which also shows the spiral galaxy M81 (NGC 3031) to the left. M81's faint satellite galaxy Holmberg IX is visible above M81 itself. Adrian photographed these galaxies with his Skywatcher 80ED refractor and an ATK16HR camera. The data was collected on the evenings of the 1st and 4th March 2006 and consists of 1.5 hours luminance (5 minute sub exposures) and 30 minutes (3 minute sub exposures) each through RGB filters. The digital development process (DDP) filter in Maxim DL was used to bring out detail in the galaxy cores and this detail was then sharpened via the application of a high-pass filter in Adobe Photoshop.  Image Credit: Adrian Brown.




Chris Newsome and Adrian Brown captured the following image of M82 on the 19th February 2006. They used a Canon EOS300D camera at 400 ASA through Adrian's Celestron C11 fitted with a f/6.3 focal reducer, mounted on a CGE mount and guided using Guidedog software with focusing using DSLRFocus. An Astronomik CLS filter was also used to remove sodium light. Five images were taken at 210 seconds exposure and calibrated in Maxim DL. The resulting image was then processed in CS2 using RGB levels, curves, GradientXTerminator and a highpass filter.  Image Credit: Chris Newsome and Adrian Brown.


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