M81 - Bode's Galaxy

M81 – Bode’s fantastic galaxy revisited

In March of 2024, I published my first image of M81 and M82, which can be found here. This year I have obtained 250 good subs of Bode’s and Cigar galaxies.

Bode’s Galaxy and kit development

The previous image was taken with my starting astrophotography kit, consisting of a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi, a Nikon Z5, a Nikon FTZ II, a Tamron 150 – 600 mm G1, an ASIair mini and a ZWO 30F4 Guide Scope and ASI120MM mini guide camera. As seen in the image from the backyard, below.

Astrophotography kit 2024 – Tamron 150 – 600 mm + Nikon Z5 + Star Adventurer GTi – in the backyard

This kit involved a lot of duct tape and zip-ties. In the 2024 photo I managed to obtain 53 minutes of data and the field of view (FOV) was 3.42 x 2.23°, which made the fantastic M81 galaxy small. Hence during 2024 I updated my kit to consist of the fantastic Askar 71F Flat-Field. Damon Scotting has done a fabulous review of the scope in youtube.

New Camera

Finally just before Christmas I decided to advance from the Nikon Z5 camera to an actual dedicated astronomy camera, I purchased the ZWO ASI533MC pro. This camera has a much smaller form factor and much higher sensitivity than the Nikon Z5.

With a new scope and a new camera my astrophotography kit now looks like this.

The Star Adventurer GTi is mounted with the Askar 71F, ASI533MC Pro, ASIair mini and Guide Scope.

The improved kit performs fantastic, for a star tracker, with the ASI533 camera the image quality is absolutely fantastic. They are crisp and clean. The 2024 version is not particularly good, as the field of view is large and the exposure time is low with only 53 minutes of integration time. Resulting in

Bode’s Galaxy – 2025 version

This time around I decided to have second light on M81 and M82, which meant taking 250 exposures of 180 seconds. This resulted in a total of 12,5 hours of exposure time. The ASI533 shoot a square aspect ratio with 3008 x 2008 pixels. The image has been processed in Pixinsight.

M81 – Bode’s galaxy and M82 – Cigar galaxy observed with Askar 71F and ASI533 MC Pro

Facts on M81

Right Ascension: 09 55 33.2
Declination: +69 03 55
Distance: 11,8 mio. light-years
Apparent visual magnitude: 6.94

Apparent visual dimension: 0.45×0.24°
Constellation: Ursa Major
Galaxy radius: 96000 light-years
Names: NGC 3031, M81, Bode’s Galaxy

Facts on M82

Right Ascension: 09 55 52.2
Declination: +69 40 47
Distance: 12 mio. light-years
Apparent visual magnitude: 8.41

Apparent visual dimension: 0.19×0.07°
Constellation: Ursa Major
Galaxy radius: 40800 light-years
Names: NGC 3034, M82, Cigar Galaxy