M82

M82 is located in Ursa Major about 12 million light years distant. Due to a close past interaction with a neighbouring galaxy (M81), it is currently in a period of massive star forming activity called a starburst.  Here, young stars are born at a rate 10 times faster than in our own Milky Way. This consumes vast amounts of the surrounding gas and eventually becomes self limiting and is expected to cease in a few tens of millions of years.

I decided to create a deeper image than my previous attempts and focus on maximising the details of the starburst HII regions, so I decided to concentrate on gathering more Ha data.

I also experimented with a processing technique described by an Adam Block studios video called continuum subtraction which more accurately blends the H alpha into the red channel.  Here, you subtract the Red from the Ha data in an attempt to eliminate the Ha emission component from stars, so you are left with only the Ha from the HII regions.  I was so impressed by the results, I also tried this on the lum channel.

The LRGB image has a Ha blend into the red and lum channels and represents 49 hours integration time. It was taken by my Esprit 150