M82
A Study by Panos Polyzois
Partner : Fahim
Phys 2070 Class at University of Manitoba 2008-2009
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment:
J. Gallagher (University of Wisconsin), M. Mountain (STScI) and P. Puxley (NSF).
General Information on M82
M82, located in Ursa Major, was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774.
It’s classified as a prototype Starburst Galaxy of the second type, famous
for its heavy star formation due to its close encounter with its neighbouring
galaxy M81. M82 is five times as bright as the entire milky way galaxy, and
100 times as bright as the Milky Way’s center, although only about a quarter
of its size. The Hubble telescope has discovered 100 newly-formed globular clusters,
formed during the most recent tidal encounter between M81 and M82 50 to 100
million years ago. M82 sits in a galaxy group made up of M81, M82, NGC 3077
and NGC 2976. Today, M81 and M82 are safely separated by 120,000,000 light years.
As classified by Hubble, there are three main types of galaxies in the universe:
spiral, elliptical and irregular. M82 is a peculiar case as it doesn’t
lie under any of these classifications. Peculiar galaxies make between 5 and
10 percent of all galaxies.
How to find M82 in the night sky:
First locate the big dipper. The next step is to draw an imaginary line from
gamma Ursae Majoris to alpha Ursae Majoris, then double its length in the same
direction. Doing this alone, you will most probably locate M81 as a very faint
patch of light. M82 is located close by and is generally harder to locate as
it has a low magnitude. This method may be summarized by the following diagram.
Backyard Astro. 2009. Deepsky Top-100 (10): M 81 & M82. http://www.backyard-astro.com/deepsky/top100/10.html
Basic Data for M82:
Type of Object: Prototype Starburst Galaxy. A starburst galaxy is a galaxy in which there is an abnormal amount of star creation. The reason for this large amount of star creation lies in the nature of the tidal forces affecting that galaxy by close interaction or collision with another close by galaxy.
Distance to Object: 11.5 +- 0.8 Mly
Size :
10.47’ x 4.365’ (Angular Size)
(3.5024 × 10^4 )×(1.4601 ×10^4 )ly (Physical Size)
Apparent Magnitude : 9.3
Position: (J200): RA: 09h 55m 52.2s D: +69° 40' 47"
What was used for aquiring our data
The telescope used to take our images was the 40 cm Evan’s reflecting
telescope at the Glenlea Observatory in Winnipeg Manitoba.
An apogee AP-47 CCD camera was used for capturing the images.
We used ImageJ for processing our images and developing a final processed image
of the galaxy M82
Lnks:
Observing M82 at different wavelengths
Research Question: “What can be understood upon observing M82’s UV radiation?”
Temperature and Density Gradients Across the Nucleus of M82
Finding the Field of View for our images
Preliminary Analysis of our image and finding Stellar Magnitudes
A Closer Look at M82's nucleus
SLOAN Digital Sky Survey Images
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