Astrophoto: M-82 by Russell Croman

M-82 by

Russell Croman

About two hundred million years ago, the latest

encounter

between

M-82

and its nearby companion

M-81

occurred in relative proximity to our planet- both are only about 11 million

light year's

distant which is a mere stone's away compared to the vastness of the

universe

. To any eyes that could have been a witness, the meeting would have seemed to happen in extreme slow motion because it took several million years from start to finish.

Nonetheless, M-82 was hugely altered, its outer arms stripped off, its star clouds excited into producing stars and exploding others at a rate so dizzying that matter was ejected and continues pouring in spectacular

particle wind

driven jets. These have a red, flame-like appearance and are estimated to be ten thousand light-years long. As a result, astronomers refer to M-82 as a

starburst

galaxy. Its exposed core is also a powerful source of x-rays - evidencing its runaway star activity.

This striking picture was taken by

Russ Croman

on February 3, 2005, from his

Dimension Point Observatory

in Mayhill, New Mexico and required almost five hours of combinded exposure. Russ's instruments are quite sophisticated, for example, this image was made with his remote controlled twenty inch, f/8 RCOS Ritchey-Chr?tien telescope and an eleven mega-pixel SBIG astronomical camera.

Do you have photos you'd like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or

email

them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by

R. Jay GaBany

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, founding the website in March 1999. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast.