M81 - NGC3031 - LRGB Combination  
Ursa Major

One of the closest galaxies to the Local Group.		  
 
Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is one of the most striking examples of a grand design spiral galaxy, with near perfect arms spiraling into the very center. Because of its proximity to Earth, its large size, and its active galactic nucleus (which harbors a 70 million solar mass supermassive black hole) Messier 81 is a popular galaxy to study in professional astronomy research. 

Messier 81 was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774. Consequently, the galaxy is sometimes referred to as "Bode's Galaxy". In 1779, Pierre Méchain and Charles Messier reidentified Bode's object, which was subsequently listed in the Messier Catalogue. 

Messier 81 is the largest galaxy in the M81 Group, a group of 34 galaxies located in the constellation Ursa Major. The distance from the Earth to the group is approximately 11.7 Mly (3.6 Mpc). 

M81 is gravitationally interacting with Messier 82 and NGC 3077. The interactions have stripped some hydrogen gas away from all three galaxies, leading to the formation of filamentary gas structures in the group. Moreover, the interactions have also caused some interstellar gas to fall into the centers of Messier 82 and NGC 3077, which has led to strong starburst activity (or the formation of many stars) within the centers of these two galaxies. 



L+RGB image composition:
The present image is composed of two diferent ones. The first one, RGB image, was taken in Oct 2009 using a Canon 350D DSLR (Rebel XT) (LINK TO ORIGINAL IMAGE HERE). This image contains M81 and M82 in the same field. 


Second one is a monochrome image taken during spring 2011 using an Atik 314L+ camera:


M81 was framed from RGB image and dinamically aligned with monochrome one.


Monochrome image as Luminance and RGB image as chrominance was combined. The resulting image contains all fine and sharp details obtained with monochrome camera plus blurred  color from DSLR camera.



  
 
Technical details:  
Location:  
 Valdemorillo - Spain
Date:  
 01/04/2011 (dd/mm/yyyy)
Conditions:  
 Normal
Temperature:  
 -5ºC
Humidity:  
 low
 
Telescope:  
 GSO Reflector 200mm f/4
Reducer/corrector:  
 Baader MPCC
Filter:  
 IDAS LPS 2"
Mount:  
 Orion Atlas EQG
Camera:  
 Canon 350D no filter
Exposure:  
 11x300s@800iso (RGB) + 24x150s (-5ºC) (L)
Guiding tube:  
 B&C 60/350 f7
Guiding camera:  
 Meade DSI Pro
Guiding software:  
 PHD Guiding
 
Procesing:  
 LRGB combination  
Notes:  
 Monochrome image taken during partial moon phase.  
     

 
All Contents Copyright by Jaime Fernández and Copyright of their respectives owners. Text mainly extracted from Wikipedia.
All Jaime Fernandez propietary contents freely available for non-profit purposes,
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