Larry Amann caught this impressive shot of M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) and M82 (Cigar Galaxy) with his SVX140T. M81 is a grand design spiral about 12 million light-years away. It has an active nucleus with a 70 million solar mass black hole. M82 is a starburst galaxy with H-alpha streamers that are the result of interactions with nearby M81. NGC 3077 appears to be an ordinary elliptical galaxy, but this image reveals ribbons of gas and dust from gravitational interactions with its larger neighbors.

According to Larry: The very photogenic galaxies M81 and M82 herald the beginning of galaxy season. I have previously imaged this pair of galaxies with an EdgeHD11, but I wanted to see how my SVX140T would compare to that much larger scope. This image combines R,G,B,Lum, and Ha data taken over 2 nights at my observatory under Bortle 3 skies. To emphasize the H-alpha streamers in M82 without weakening the RGB regions in M81, I replaced the red channel in the LRGB image with the max of that channel and the Ha image after converting to nonlinear. I was pleased to see that the SVX140T gave an image with detail, contrast, and color that I preferred to what I could get with the EdgeHD11. This confirms that I'll use the SVX140T for all except the very smallest targets.

Other Designations: M81, Bode's Galaxy | M82, Cigar Galaxy | NGC 3077.

Details:

Scope: SVX140T + SFFX2 Flattener (938mm, f/6.7)

Camera: ASI6200MM-Pro

Mount: Paramount MyT upgraded

Focuser/rotator: Nitecrawler

Mount & camera control: TheSkyX on a NUC running Linux Mint

Filters: Chroma R, G, B, Lum, 5nm Ha

Subs: 21x120s B, 25x120s G, 25x120s R, 60x120s Lum, 34x300s Ha (7.2 hrs total)

Processing: PixInsight, Affinity Photo 2

Location: Bortle 3

*For more details and an in-depth look at this image, visit Larry’s AstroBin.

References:

M81, M82, NGC 3077 - AstroBin. (n.d.). AstroBin. https://app.astrobin.com/u/lpammann?i=yt8rts#gallery