M81, also known as Bode's Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy located ~12 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. Discovered by German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774, this cosmic island is roughly 90,000 light-years in diameter—comparable in size to our own Milky Way—and is home to over 250 billion stars. It is a popular target of astrophotographers for its pristine, sweeping spiral arms filled with hot, blue, star-forming regions and dust lanes that wind directly down into a bright, compact core. At the very center of its active galactic nucleus lies a supermassive black hole weighing roughly 70 million solar masses.
This HaLRGB image was captured in a Queen Creek (Arizona) Bortle 7/8 backyard using a Skywatcher Esprit 150ED telescope. The telescope is mounted on a 10Micron GM2000 HPS II mount. The camera is a ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro using Antlia VPRO LRGB and 3nm HA filters. It was captured over 28 nights (2022-12-24 to 2024-05-11). The images were captured using NINA and stacked/processed in PixInsight.
Full image and capture details available at Astrobin: https://app.astrobin.com/i/9fdev5
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Acquisition:
- Location: Queen Creek, AZ Bortle 7/8
- Dates: 2022-12-24 to 2024-05-11
- Lights (Dithered, Cooled -10°C, Gain 100):
- 1025 x 60s L
- 100 x 300s R
- 100 x 300s G
- 100 x 300s B
- 100 x 600s HA
- Bias: 200
- Flats: 25 Each Filter
Hardware:
- Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MM PRO
- Scope: Skywatcher Esprit 150ED
- Focuser: FocusCube2
- Guide Camera: ASI 174mm Mini
- Guide Scope: ZWO OAG-L
- Rotator: Falcon V2
- Mount: GM2000 HPS II
- Filters: Antlia VPRO LRGB, 3nm HA
Software:
- NINA
- PixInsight
Processing:
Dynamic Crop, Gradient Correction, Channel Comb, SPCC, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, Stat Stretch, HA Comb, Saturation, L Sharpening, LRGB Comb
by frustratedphoton