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| M81 Bode on left and M82 Cigar on the right |
I just finished looking at these two objects from the backyard, and they are not easy to see in my 8" reflector. Stellarium calls M81 Bode's Nebula even though it is a galaxy. So that's what I am going to call it also. Bode is listed as a 6.9 mag object and the Cigar as a 8.4 mag. These are both Messier objects and will be counted against my goal of viewing all of them this summer. Note: That is not my picture shown here...
Both of these objects could be same in the same view using my Televue Panoptics 24" eyepiece with a 68 degree AFOV. Bode was the brighter of the two objects.
I first zoomed in on Bode's Nebula (M81) by switching to a Televue Nagler 5mm eyepiece and then adding a Televue 2x barlow. More than a smudge was visible, but not too bright and pretty much no detail to be seen. It was like a disappointing view of The Great Cluster In Hercules, with none of the detail.
The Cigar Galaxy (M82) was just a thin strip of faint light. It was rather pointy like shown in the picture above, but much fainter. No amount of power gave me anything other than a thin smudge.
Both objects are located in Ursa Major and are rather easy to find, because with a lower power eyepiece you may see them both at the same time. I took some pictures but they are pretty bad. I wasn't able to achieve focus and I need to get to bed. I may post one just for a good laugh...
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