Object Information                                            Imaging Details

M82 is a nearby starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It's quite bright - roughly five times as bright as the whole Milky Way. M82 is being physically affected by its neighboring galaxy, M81. Tidal forces caused by gravity have deformed this galaxy. This interaction has caused star formation to increase substantially.

M82 and it's neighboring galaxy M81 are easy to spot through a modest telescope. A careful observer can spot them with binoculars. Observing the galaxy's details requires a reasonably large telescope.

I imaged this object at the 2010 Texas Star Party (near Fort Davis, Texas). I tried to capture as much of the red 'jets' near the galaxy center as possible. I obtained f/6.3 color data a few weeks later at our club's 'Upham' dark sky site, and combined the images in Photoshop.

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