Photo of the Week for May 10, 2019
M81 is a wonderfully symmetrical spiral situated in Ursa Major, and is half of the well known M81/M82 galaxy pair. Both objects are well placed for evening viewing in the spring sky. M81 closely matches what many people picture when they hear the phrase, “spiral galaxy.” As this detailed image reveals, M81’s tidy spiral arms are studded with many pinkish star-formation regions.
Stan Noble captured M81 from his home observatory in Aneroid, Saskatchewan, with a Celestron EdgeHD 800 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (working at f/7 with a reducer lens) and a ZWO ASI294MC Pro imaging camera. The final image is a stack of 85, 2-minute exposures.
