Bode's Galaxy & the Cigar Galaxy

In the center of this widefield image, there’s a pair of galaxies, called Bode’s Galaxy (M 81, right) and Cigar Galaxy (M 82, left).

Messier 81 is a spiral galaxy in the constallation Ursa Major, located about 12 million light years from us, with an apparent magnitude of about 6.

Next to it, there is Messier 82, a starburst galaxy with an apparent magnitute of 8.6 mag.

In a pretty close encounter about 500 million years ago, M 82 changed massively. The rate of star formation in its core increased tremendously, leading to a starburst, making M 82 one of the brightest infrared galaxies, also strongly visible in radio wavelengths. Caused by supernovae, the starburst creates a massive gas movement, perpendicular to the galaxy plane. If you zoom closely, you can see those red swirls, reaching out from the core.

In one of its globular clusters, M 82 features an ultra-bright source of x-ray radiation (M82 X-1), a medium-sized black hole of about 415 sun masses, with a massive star orbiting around it. In 2024, another strong source of x-ray radiation was detected (M82 X-2), caused by a pulsar.

If we remove the stars however, there are way more galaxies far behind in the background.

Right below M 81 you can see a faint little neighbour galaxy (NGC 5336) and a little further, there’s a small red dot, catalogued as MH94a Ho IX 9 – HII (ionized).