FIUCASE
Messier 81 - Bode's Galaxy
Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy within Ursa Major that was discovered by both Johann Elert Bode in 1774 and Pierre Mechain in 1779. It wasn’t until 1781 that Charles Messier added the object to his famous catalogue, which has over 100 astronomical objects to date. The 6.8 apparent magnitude galaxy, which is just outside the limit of the human eye (but visible with binoculars and small telescopes), contains an active galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole of 70 million solar masses, and also harbors regions of star formation along the arms. M81 is located 12 million light years away and has over 250 billion stars within its 90 light year diameter. This image is the product of four images, with red, green, and blue filters exposed for 180 seconds, and a luminance filter exposed for 60 seconds. They were taken by Dr. Webb with FIU’s Stocker AstroScience Center telescope on April 2, 2015, and were color combined by Gabriel Salazar.
Messier 81 - Bode's Galaxy
Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy within Ursa Major that was discovered by both Johann Elert Bode in 1774 and Pierre Mechain in 1779. It wasn’t until 1781 that Charles Messier added the object to his famous catalogue, which has over 100 astronomical objects to date. The 6.8 apparent magnitude galaxy, which is just outside the limit of the human eye (but visible with binoculars and small telescopes), contains an active galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole of 70 million solar masses, and also harbors regions of star formation along the arms. M81 is located 12 million light years away and has over 250 billion stars within its 90 light year diameter. This image is the product of four images, with red, green, and blue filters exposed for 180 seconds, and a luminance filter exposed for 60 seconds. They were taken by Dr. Webb with FIU’s Stocker AstroScience Center telescope on April 2, 2015, and were color combined by Gabriel Salazar.