M82 and M81
Cigar Galaxy and Bode’s Galaxy in Ursa Major

M81 (Bode’s) is the large tilted spiral to the right, M82 (Cigar) the edge-on irregular galaxy at left.
They make for an incredible pairing, separated by only 35 arc minutes in the sky. M81 appears about 20 arc minutes across, showing some spiral structure and a very bright central core with two stars superimposed onto the disk. M82 appears as a long thin nebulous bar about 8 arc minutes long and 1.5 arc minutes thick, with rifts and knots plainly visible. The variance in colour along the length of the disk is quite striking.

Both galaxies are about 12 million light years away and are part of the M81 group of galaxies, a neighbour to the Local Group. M81 is about 100,000 light years across, while M82 is about 40,000 light years.

North at 9 o’clock, East at 6 o’clock