M81 and M82

[Stu]

Got them both last night in my WO66 and 17t4. Am in the New Forest for a couple of nights camping and the sky was pretty spectacular last night.

Also found M51, plus all three galaxies in the Leo Triplet. NGC3268 was very faint, just about visible with averted vision but am pleased I got it.

Stu

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I got them in 10x50 bins many times. M81 and M82 have higher surface brightness, so try them first. M51 needs a transparent sky and a dark site. I got that in 10x50s before, although 15x70 is a lot easier.

[mdstuart]

Agreed try M81/2 first. M51 is just! possible with averted vision in mag 5.5 skies with a 50mm pair of bins but M81/2 are relatively easy if you know where to look!

Mark

[casemonster]

Ok, will have another go with the bins and will try to see how I get on.

Sorry to temp hijack the thread but does anyone know if there is a zoom facility with stellarium whereby you can increase the field of view and effectively plot a star hop to find them using less bright mgnitude stars before going out into the night sky?

Cheers

Chris

[rory]

nice sketch mike. id like to sketch a few finds eventually.

[Stu]

Managed them easily in 15 x 50is binos last night from the New Forest. Also saw M51 surprisingly easily, just visible with direct vision but both components visible clearly with averted vision. Just shows what a difference a dark site makes. I could easily see the fainter stars in UMa with the naked eye which made star hopping very easy.

Stu

[casemonster]

Found m82 last night using Stellarium...found out how to increase the magnitude and used Dubhe as the starter, there are two curved lines of stars, and continued down from these to another bright L shaped set of stars , created a very tall triangle in my mind to the left and there it was.

That was in the 12x50 bins Not sure I got the smaller galaxy m81 in the bins but had a nice fuzzy m82 blob in the scope it was very late 12:30 and I only popped out for half an hour and shortly after, the clouds came over!!

Very pleased to have found it though...can't wait for next clear skies!!

[Stargazer_00]

I can get these two, with a lot of space, in an 18mm in my 6 inch Newt. They look great

[mdstuart]

M81 is the brightest galaxy of the M81 group. A few tens of millions of years ago, M81 had a close interaction with its neighbor M82. M81's spiral structure was effected, becoming more pronounced, as well as forming a dark linear feature northeast of the nuclear region. It's distance is estimated at nearly 12 million light years. An unusual aspect of the galaxy is that it appears to have very little dark matter, as it's rotational velocity drops off in its outer region much more than in most galaxies.

M82 lies about 150,000 light years north of M81. After its interaction with M81, M82's core has entered a period of heavy starburst with conspicuous dark lanes. Over 100 young globular clusters have been discovered as likely results of this encounter. The explosive gas flow is a strong source of radio noise, which was discovered by Henbury Brown in 1953. M82 is also the brightest infrared galaxy in the sky. As with its companion, it lies nearly 12 million light years away.

[Mike73]

Wow! Very interesting Stuart, thanks for adding it to the thread!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pajr777]

My first galaxies, took three attempts over separate nights to find them. It was worth it

[chiltonstar]

Even in my relatively light polluted site (S. Oxon), this pair are nearly always visible in a 5" Mak or 15x70s, whereas M101 and M51 "come and go" depending on conditions.

A week ago, after heavy rain the seeing was clear enough to see the spiral structure in M81 with the bins - (first time for me with bins) - clearly, the seeing is all important! The same night, M101 was superb, looking like a large pearl, and M51 easily visible with the smaller galaxy just about at the limit.

Seeing is clearly a dominating effect for these sort of objects rather than just aperture - a move to S. France required maybe!

Chris