M 81 -- Bode's Galaxy

Discovered by Johann Bode in 1774, Bode's Galaxy is the largest galaxy in the so-called M81 Group in Ursa Major (a group of 34 galaxies). The galaxy has a strong gravitational interaction with M82, the Cigar Galaxy (see the next post).

This image was captured with an 8 inch f/3.9 Newtonian and a Mallincam DS 2.3+ imager. This is a stack of 93 x 20-second integrations. Stacking was in DeepSky Stacker and the image was adjusted in Photoshop.

The above image was processed for contrast. Here's another version that has more skyglow, but is more contrast balanced.