M82, The 'Cigar Galaxy' (aka. NGC 3034, ARP 337)...2 scopes, 3 cameras and 1 year.

[RobH]

M82, the Cigar Galaxy, really needs no introduction to anyone with an interest in astronomy.

Discovered, together with M81, on New Year’s Eve 1774 by Johann Elert Bode, M82 is 12 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major, and is an easy target for even small amateur telescopes, with a fair bit of structure visible to the eye.

I’ve seen structure in this galaxy with a £100 4 inch achromatic scope, and in a larger instrument, a lot of detail can be made out.

M82 is 12 million light years away from us, with a diameter of 40,000 light years, quite a bit smaller than the Milky Way, which has a diameter of 100-120,000 light years.

Distorted by gravitational tidal forces from a close encounter with the larger M81, there are regions of intense star forming activity in the core, 10 times as energetic as in the whole of our own galaxy.

The spouts of gas heading out of the galaxy at high velocity are powered by supernova explosions that occur as frequently as once every 10 years.

M82 is the brightest infra-red object in the sky, and is thought to have very little dark matter surrounding it, as the rotational velocity of its outer regions drops off much more rapidly than is usual in other galaxies.

The Chandra space telescope has recently discovered a fluctuating X-ray source 600 light years from the centre which is thought could be the first intermediate sized black hole discovered, with a mass of between 200 and 5000 times that of the sun. All galaxies are believed to have a supermassive black hole at the centre, and M82 is no exception, with a black hole of 30 million solar masses.

In April 2010, astronomers at Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester reported an unknown object in M82. The object has started sending out radio waves, and the emission doesn’t look like anything we’ve discovered in the universe before. Several theories have been proposed about just what this strange object is, but so far none of them entirely fits what is being observed.

The object is located very close to the centre of M82. It has an apparent motion of 4 times the speed of light relative to the galaxy centre. As we know, Einstein’s very well tested theories of relativity tell us that no object can travel faster than light but no, it isn’t proof that Einstein got it wrong, nor is it Captain Kirk going to warp speed!(unfortunately!)....apparently this sort of effect has been seen before in jets of matter streaming from galactic cores, and is a kind of optical illusion caused by relativistic effects.

This is why science is great though....something crops up that doesn’t fit what we know and we all get excited!!

Technical data....

Telescopes. 10 inch Ritchey Chretien @ F8 for luminance and RGB, 12 inch Ritchey Chretien @ F5.3 for H-alpha (jets from the core)

Cameras. SX H18 binned 2x2 for luminance, SX M25C for colour, Atik 460EX binned 2x2 for Ha.

Exposures.

Luminance -38 x 10 minutes, RGB – 45 x 10 minutes, Ha – 8 x 30 minutes. Total imaging time – 21 hours 50 minutes.

Data acquired from Lucksall in March 2012 and Weymouth in April 2012 and Jan/Feb 2013.

Cheers.

Rob

And a wider view.....

[andyo]

Rob that is a fantstic image the ha data has really brought out the core detail nicely,one of the best i have seen of this galaxy

[Scott]

brilliant

[MikeD]

Fantastic result Rob, your ha has gone a lot deeper than my shot from this year.

Mike.

[Black Knight]

Woah, that's a great image, very well done! A really good look at the jets emanating from the core, and the dust lanes too. Excellent!

[Tom OD]

Excellent work Rob. I think I prefer the wider view. The Ha jets are very impressive, and show super detail.

Tom

[badgerchap]

Lovely job Rob. Pushing the boundaries of what it means to be an 'amateur' astronomer here. Don't think I've seen the Ha so bright in a terrestrial image before, really nice.

[RobH]

Thanks folks.

Tom, I prefer the wider view too....I like to see galaxies in a little context. There's an even wider one that I've not posted.

This is first light for the 12 inch RC/Atik 460EX combo, and judging from how it seemed to suck up the Ha photons, I'm mightily tempted to grab a few more hours of luminance for this as it knocks the H18 into a cocked hat on all counts.

[SkyJamie]

Fantastic image Rob and great info to go with it

Jamie

[Mark72]

Mind-boggling, Ha is fantastic. Looks it deserves normal imaging time and not full Moon.

Great details; I like close-up

Mark

[Gina]

WOW!! That's truly magnificent

[Naemeth]

Excellent image, it's nice to see it both up close and in context, although it just being in context is certainly good enough .

[Anweniel]

Hats off Rob thats a tremendous Cigar! Those jets are really impressive. Can also spot some fainter galaxies coming through ( 3 towards top right, 2 or 3 towards the bottom and one to the left )

[nytecam]

Fabulous image Rob - one of my favourite gxys in M82 - well done

[Vic&Al]

Fantastic image. Just read an article on this galaxy in Sky@ Night it seems there may be interactions between M81 + M82 causing the high levels of activity in this galaxy, I am sure it will teach us a lot in the coming years.

The RC/Atik combo really hoovers up the Ha! Well done

[nytecam]

Thanks folks....This is first light for the 12 inch RC/Atik 460EX combo, and judging from how it seemed to suck up the Ha photons, I'm mightily tempted to grab a few more hours of luminance for this as it knocks the H18 into a cocked hat on all counts.

Rob - Sony ICX694A chipped Atik 460EX and SXVR-H694 = 65% QE @ Ha eg >20% 'faster' than your older KAF8300 chipped SXVR-H18 @ Ha

[Welrod50]

Excellent!

[Welrod50]

_{Simply excellent.}

[RobH]

Rob - Sony ICX694A chipped Atik 460EX and SXVR-H694 = 65% QE @ Ha eg >20% 'faster' than your older KAF8300 chipped SXVR-H18 @ Ha

On paper, yes, but in practice I think there's a lot more to it than just the QE. I found the H18 sluggish in the extreme, and this isn't reported with other cameras using the 8300 chip so I think electronics has a lot to do with it. The 460 EX is vastly faster than the H18....in a test shot of 6 minutes I was getting more data than in a stack of 20 x 10 minute subs with the H18.....admittedly, this was at F5.3 compared to F8, but it's still a big difference.

I was rapidly losing my enjoyment of AP in general with the old camera, but this new camera/scope combo has given me my mojo back

Mind-boggling, Ha is fantastic. Looks it deserves normal imaging time and not full Moon.

Mark

The Ha was shot on the 6th and 15th February Mark, with no moon visible.....it's just very faint. Again, the temptation is to grab another couple of nights of just Ha and see how deep I can go.

Cheers

Rob

[cloudbuster]

nice one Rob...what more can one say!

[ollypenrice]

He's back! And with an M82 to die for... What an image! On the one hand it has the softly, softly look but on the other there isn't an atom of detail that could have been had but wasn't. This is the way to do it.

On the 8300 chip I do know several people, all very experienced, who've found it sluggish in SBIG cameras. I tried a guest's QSI 583 and that was a lovely instrument so, yes, the electronics play a huge role, I think. I'm not surprised you liked the Atik 460. I've processed three images with guests' data from these cameras and Ampleamp's Rosette in Ha was, I think, the sweetest data I've ever worked on.

Great to see some action from the new RC, too, Rob. Looks more than promising!

Olly

[Mark at Beaufort]

Rob, as always, your images are briliant and this one of M82 takes your breath away. I knew that the DIY wooden tripod would do the business at Lucksall last year . Hope the tour is going well and that you might get chance to see some southern skies.

Look forward to seeing more images.

Mark

[tich]

Cracking image Rob..

[stem1989]

Thanks for the introduction its nice to know exactly what we are looking at... and what a great result, awesome image!