#messier82

MESSIER 82- The Cigar galaxy

Hey everyone!

Today we will be taking a look at this beautiful galaxy, Messier 82 (also known as The Cigar galaxy)

Lets go straight to the facts about this spiral galaxy:

- It is 12 MILLION light years away

-It is located in the Ursa Major constellation

-Around the galaxy’s centre, stars are being born at a rate 10 times larger than that of our ENTIRE milky way galaxy.

-It is known as a ‘Starburst Galaxy’, this means that the galaxy is undergoing an exceptionally high rate of star formations.

-It was discovered in 1774

-It is best observed in April (GO LOOK)

https://esawebb.org/news/weic2427/

Bode’s Galaxy (centre) is catalogued as Messier-81. In the bottom-left is the irregularly-shaped “Cigar Galaxy”, catalogued as Messier-82.

Bode’s Galaxy is about 12 million light years distance, which is close, on a cosmic scale. It is a bright object, and a favourite target for researchers and amateurs. In 2022, “fast radio bursts” were detected. These are rare radio sources that, as yet, cannot be explained.

The Cigar Galaxy is small compared to our Milky Way galaxy, but it is much more luminous. It is classified as a “Starburst Galaxy” because it is an extremely active area of star formation. Adding to the mystery of this strange galaxy was the recent discovery of a unique radio source that might be from a “micro-quasar”, but cannot be fully explained.

At the right of this image is the third member of the “M81 Group”, the small disrupted elliptical galaxy NGC 3077.

I photographed the Messier-81 group of galaxies from my garden in Strasbourg France on two cold evening in January 2024.

70 images x 180 seconds each.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_81

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_82

Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. A member of the M81 Group, it is about five times more luminous than the whole Milky Way and has a center one hundred times more luminous than our galaxy's center.

Bode’s Galaxy is a beautiful subject for amateur astrophotographers because it is bright and face-on.

Radio messages to the nearby planets take several minutes, but a radio messages to Bode’s Galaxy takes 12 million years. Indeed, these distances are truly difficult to comprehend, yet, it is considered nearby on an intergalactic scale.

As it appears almost face-on, we get a good look at the composition of a typical spiral galaxy. I expect to see spiral arms that suggest gravitational forces on a spinning disk. However, look closely: there are cross-hatching patterns in the clouds that don’t fit this formula. Professional astronomers suggest that there might be two Black Holes at the centre. I speculate that it may explain the pattern of “tartan” clouds that I captured here (and confirmed in photos by others).

New Post has been published on http://www.wallpaperbase.org/galaxy-messier82/

Galaxy Messier82

Galaxy Messier82