What's In The Sky - February 2021

Clear February nights present some great stargazing opportunities, as suggested here by Orion Telescopes and Binoculars. Be sure to bundle up and keep warm while you get outside for some stargazing fun!

M81 - The Cigar Galaxy and M82 - Bode's Galaxy in Ursa Major. Image processed by Insight Observatory Starbase subscriber, Daniel Nobre, from image data acquired on the 16" f/3.7 Dream astrograph reflector (ATEO-1).

Bright Galaxies

In late February, bright galaxies M81 and M82 will be about as high in the sky as they will get for North American stargazers. From a dark sky site, these galaxies are visible with a 50mm or larger binocular, but we suggest you use a large telescope to chase these galaxies down just off the leading edge of the Big Dipper asterism. Many observers consider M81 and M82 the best pairing of visual galaxies in the sky!

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy (left) was processed by Utkarsh Mishra, and M45 was processed by Chris Lin, both imaged on ATEO-1 using Insight Observatory's online Personal Image Request (PIR) application.

Binocular Targets

Astronomy isn't always about how much gear you have! Grab some Astro binoculars and check out the night sky without a lot of equipment. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is high in the sky in the evening right now, with the Pleiades (M45) higher up. Both make great targets for almost any binocular!

The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter

On February 11th, there is a conjunction between Venus and Jupiter in the early morning just before sunrise. With a separation of 0.5 degrees, the pair will be close enough together to fit into the field of view of most telescopes with around 75x-100x magnification. Plus, with Saturn still nearby, it's a great morning for planetary viewing. Get up early, find a clear southeastern horizon, and see if you can get a good view before sunrise!

M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo (left) and M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici (right), both imaged on ATEO-1 by Charles Weaver using Insight Observatory's online Personal Image Request (PIR) application.

Midnight Spirals

Some galaxies for the night owls, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) and the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), are some nice spiral galaxies that are both visible after midnight in February. The spiral arms of M51 can be glimpsed under dark skies with a 4.5" telescope, but will have more definition in larger telescopes. M104 is similar; it is visible in a 4" telescope, but to distinguish the central "bulge" and 8" or larger instrument is required.

All objects described above can easily be seen with the suggested equipment from a dark sky site, a viewing location some distance away from city lights, where light pollution and bright moonlight do not overpower the stars.

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New Image Sets Available In Starbase!

New image sets are available for downloading from Insight Observatory's Starbase Image Set Repository! Over the course of the past six months, all three remote Astronomical Telescopes for Educational Outreach (ATEO) have been busy gathering image data for Starbase as well as various educational projects.

Listed below are just a few image sets that are now available and acquired on Insight Observatory's ATEO remote telescopes...

NGC 1365 - The "Great Barred Spiral Galaxy" in the constellation Fornax. Imaged data acquired on ATEO-3 by Franck Jobard and processed by Utkarsh Mishra.

ATEO-1 - 16" f/3.75 Dream Aerospace Systems astrograph reflector:

• M101 - Luminance (2020): Pinwheel Galaxy - 5 hours 
• M101 - Red, Green, Blue (2020): Pinwheel Galaxy - 7 Hours 10 Minutes

• M81-M82 - Luminance (2020): Bode's and Cigar Galaxies - 6 Hours 50 Minutes 
• M81-M82 - RGB (2020): Bode's and Cigar Galaxies - 17 Hours 15 Minutes

• NGC 5907 - Luminance (2020): Knife Edge or Splinter Galaxy - 20 Hours 20 Minutes

NGC 5907 - The Knife Edge or Splinter Galaxy (left) imaged on ATEO-1, M81, and M82 - Bode's and Cigar Galaxies (upper right) imaged on ATEO-1, and IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula (lower right) imaged on ATEO-2A.

ATEO-2A - 5" f/5.8 Williams Optics APO refractor:

• IC405 One-Shot Color (2020): Flaming Star Nebula - 3 Hours 30 Minutes

ATEO-3 - 12.5" f/9 Quasar Ritchey-Chretien:

• Gum 15 - Luminance (2020): Nebula in Vela - 12 Hours 20 Minutes 
• Gum 15 - RGB (2020): Nebula in Vela - 6 Hours 40 Minutes

• NGC 1365 - Luminance (2020): Great Barred Spiral Galaxy - 7 Hours 40 Minutes 
• NGC 1365 - RGB (2020): Great Barred Spiral Galaxy - 8 Hours 20 Minutes

For any questions regarding Starbase, please Contact Us.

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M81 and M82 - "The Odd Couple"

Think of the perfect example of a "well-behaved", spiral galaxy, and M81 comes to mind, as, utter perfection. In the opposite direction, think of a galactic, "wild and crazy guy" - and it's M82. Now think of them, as a pair. Talk about an "Odd Couple"!

We are extremely fortunate to have this pair, as nearby as they are, at roughly, 12 light-years. The two, are members of the Ursa Major galactic cluster - a knot, in the Virgo Super-cluster of galaxies, as is our own, "Local Group", of galaxies.

M81, Bode's Galaxy (left), and M82, The Cigar Galaxy (right) in Ursa Major imaged on ATEO-1, the 16" f/3.7 astrograph reflector. Image data were acquired by Muir Evenden and processed by Utkarsh Mishra.

M81 and M82, are among the finest targets for the amateur astronomer with, even, a medium-sized telescope (6"-12"), their magnitude being, approximately, 7th, and 9th, respectively. But they can be detected in smaller scopes, and even, in a good pair of binoculars*, under good sky transparency conditions.

Let's separate the pair out for some analyses:

M81 is a type Sa spiral galaxy. It's, well - perfect. So much so, that it shares the distinctive title of, relatively few galaxies, as a "Grand Design Spiral". Now, that's something to boast about. And I do!

At a diameter of 90,000 light-years, and a distance of 12 million light-years, its relatively large size, and brightness, make it a "stunning" find in the eyepiece. In medium-sized scopes (12+"), the uniformity of its, "oh!-so-homogenous" spiral-arm structure, is notable.

And then, there was M82...

Well; if ever a galaxy looked like it was exploding - M82 - is it. In fact, for a very long time, that's just what astronomers thought was happening. However, there's a little more to it: what's really going on there, is, a massive outburst of star formation - to the point, that, in a sense it is "exploding" - with new stars! Our, Milky Way galaxy (BTW: a barred spiral, or, Sb-type), has a stellar generation rate of about 3, new stars, per year. M81's rate of star formation is something like 33 times that, of ours! (Whew!)

Because of the intense gravitational interaction between M81 and M82 - as well as, nearby, Ursa Major group member, NGC3077 - a small, disrupted, elliptical galaxy - both, M82 and NGC3077 are undergoing, intense, star formation periods in a very short span of time, as galaxies go. Tidal, and other, interruptions are causing large volumes of gases between the three galaxies, to fall inward, toward the cores of M82 and NGC3077. (M81 is, seemingly, immune to this sort of thing, of course!) But, all, three galaxies, are enveloped within interactive streams of gases. Both, M81 and M82, have hosted fairly recent supernovae activity; SN1993-J, in 1993 in M81 - and, SN2014-J, in 2014 in M82.

* Some, experienced, advanced amateurs have been able to detect both of these galaxies, under extremely good transparency conditions using only the unaided eye!

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

24 hours of Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue image data of M81 and M82 are available for download from Insight Observatory's deep-sky image repository, Starbase. 

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