M81 + M82 | HaRGB (Federico Lorenzo Barra)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · HD85161 · HD85458 · HD85533 · HD85828 · HD86574 · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034 · NGC 3077

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M81 + M82 | HaRGB

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Powered byPixInsight

M81 + M82 | HaRGB

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

This is my first attempt at shooting galaxies with my setup: a Sharpstar 61 EPDH II telescope and a ZWO 533 MC Pro camera. The image shows two galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major: M81 and M82. M81, also known as Bode's Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy with a bright yellow core and well-defined arms. M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, is an irregular galaxy with red gas and dust clouds that indicate intense star formation. Both galaxies are about 12 million light-years away from us and are gravitationally interacting with each other, causing distortions and tidal forces.

To capture the details of these galaxies, since I have an OSC (one-shot color) camera, I had to take two images: one with an Optolong L-Pro filter and one with an Optolong L-Extreme filter. The L-Pro filter is a broadband filter that preserves the natural colors of the stars and galaxies, while the L-Extreme filter is a narrowband filter that isolates the hydrogen-alpha (Ha) and oxygen-III (OIII) emission lines from the gas clouds. By combining these two images in post-processing, I was able to create an HaRGB image that shows both the natural colors and the red emission from the gas.

I hope you like this image and I would appreciate your feedback and suggestions on how to improve my technique and processing.

ZWO AM5
Imagers of Italy
Optolong L-eXtreme filter
PixInsight Addicts
ASI533MC Pro

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7625211
PixInsight job	NZJ46YQZ10KWNVVHEUAVFUM13776PXX1
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h57m00s.30
RA (top/left)	10h11m41s.63
RA (top/right)	09h57m11s.29
RA (bottom/right)	09h41m52s.44
RA (bottom/left)	09h56m50s.00

Dec (center)	+69°10′39″.2
Dec (top/left)	+68°49′26″.9
Dec (top/right)	+70°32′24″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°27′03″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	+67°48′52″.5

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M81 + M82 | HaRGB

M81 + M82 | HaRGB

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M81 + M82 | HaRGB

M81 + M82 | HaRGB

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