This image, understandably, looks more like a bizarre work of art rather than a realistic image of the deep sky. Indeed, certain hues represented above have been pushed to rather unusual levels in order to bring out various features of the image. The bright pair of objects in the field above are the neighboring galaxies Messier 81 and Messier 82. On the left, we have the majestic spiral disc of M 81, also known as Bode's Nebula after its 18th century discoverer J.E. Bode. While just half a degree to the north (right in this image) resides the enigmatic M 82. Due to their relative closeness to each other and to our very own galaxy, this unusual pairing has been the topic of many studies. The disrupted structure of M 82 has been under much scrutiny since the discovery of the faint red filaments seen perpendicular to the cigar-like disc of the galaxy in 1962. Originally assumed to be evidence of a violent explosion within the galactic core, the filaments are now thought to be the result of what is known as "starburst" activity within the galactic disc itself. It seems that M 81 and M 82 had a rather close encounter with one another about 200 million years ago, at which time a large quantity of tenous matter and outlying stars were pulled away from the body of the less massive M 82. Eventually the pair seperated and the masses of material begin to fall back onto the disc of the galaxy, triggering a "burst" of "star" formation. The resulting young stars were created in dense superclusters containing thousands of massive members. Such superclusters of hot stars inevitably led to fierce stellar winds, disrupting the normal motions of other existing stars and clouds of matter throughout the galactic disc. This disruption triggered the collision of such interstellar clouds within the disc and even higher velocity winds generating what is known as a "superwind". Within all of this chaos, strong magnetic fields have been measured along with the existance of subatomic particles traveling at near the speed of light. Many of these particles appear to have gotten caught up within the turbulent superwind and flung from within the galaxy's disc towards the path of least resistance (whether magnetic or physical). These filaments of ejected particles can be traced to distances of thousands of light-years from the galaxy's main disc. Further evidence of the interaction between M 81 and M 82 can be found above in the form of an extremely faint ring of gas, dust, and stars known as Arp's Loop. When viewed in a darkened room, my image will reveal a large elongated loop of material, seen encompassing the far right side of M 81. The loop is quite broad and oriented nearly up/down in this potrait. This faint loop of material was discovered in 1965 by Halton Arp using a 48-inch Schmidt telescope and is estimated to glow at merely .5% brighter than the dark nightime sky, itself! Please click here for a better view of the loop. Also of note is the dwarf irregular galaxy known as Holmberg IX, located immediately above the spiral M 81 in the image above. Its bluish color is indicative of the recent findings that Holmberg IX is likely the nearest "young" galaxy to Earth. And the fact that nearly 25% of its stellar population is less than 200 million years old tells us that the young galaxy likley formed, along with Arp's Loop, as a direct result of the recent encounter between M 81 and M 82! Furthermore, if one clicks on the above image and examines the larger version, a myriad of tiny anonymous galaxies can be spotted. Most of these appear in heavily reddened clusters, such as the little group located between the two golden colored stars to the lower right of M 82. Image above taken with homemade 8-inch f/5.4 astrograph and SBIG STL-11000M with exposures totaling 140 minutes of luminance and 20 miuntes each R,G,& B.