Kwychang
M81 Bode's Nebula
Referred to as Bode's Nebula, it is however, a spiral galaxy located close to the Big Dipper or Plough asterism in Ursa Major. It has a close companion galaxy M82 the Cigar galaxy, so close together, they are often imaged as a pair.
Lying about 12 million light years from Earth and about 90,000 light years across. Binoculars will pick up M81 as a faint fuzzy patch of light under reasonable sky conditions.
First discovered by a German astronomer by the name of Johann Elert Bode in 1774, hence Bode's Nebula. At the time no one had any clue it was a whole other galaxy.
Johann Elert Bode is the person responsible for all the butt jokes we astronomers have to endure. He's the person that gave the planet Uranus it's name. After William Herschel discovered Uranus, he originally named it Georgium Sidus (George's star), has it was first thought by Herschel to be a star or comet.
Right, now for the usual boring techie bit for those still reading or interested:
Skywatcher quattro 8" S & f4 aplanatic coma corrector
Skywatcher EQ6-R pro mount guided with an Altair 50mm & GPcam setup
Canon 450D astro modded with Astronomik CLS CCD EOS APS-C clip filter. Neewer Intervalometer used to control the exposures.
Only got six useable 6 minute exposures before the clouds rolled over at the end of the night.
Stacked with calibration frames and all processing done with StarTools.
M81 Bode's Nebula
Referred to as Bode's Nebula, it is however, a spiral galaxy located close to the Big Dipper or Plough asterism in Ursa Major. It has a close companion galaxy M82 the Cigar galaxy, so close together, they are often imaged as a pair.
Lying about 12 million light years from Earth and about 90,000 light years across. Binoculars will pick up M81 as a faint fuzzy patch of light under reasonable sky conditions.
First discovered by a German astronomer by the name of Johann Elert Bode in 1774, hence Bode's Nebula. At the time no one had any clue it was a whole other galaxy.
Johann Elert Bode is the person responsible for all the butt jokes we astronomers have to endure. He's the person that gave the planet Uranus it's name. After William Herschel discovered Uranus, he originally named it Georgium Sidus (George's star), has it was first thought by Herschel to be a star or comet.
Right, now for the usual boring techie bit for those still reading or interested:
Skywatcher quattro 8" S & f4 aplanatic coma corrector
Skywatcher EQ6-R pro mount guided with an Altair 50mm & GPcam setup
Canon 450D astro modded with Astronomik CLS CCD EOS APS-C clip filter. Neewer Intervalometer used to control the exposures.
Only got six useable 6 minute exposures before the clouds rolled over at the end of the night.
Stacked with calibration frames and all processing done with StarTools.