Last night, I decided to take some images of close galactic pairs. The first is Bode's Galaxy--a spiral (M81) and The Cigar Galaxy(M82), which looks like a cigar. The proximity of these galaxies is not line of sight, they are actually gravitationally interacting. Between the two is a nebulosity called the Integrated Flux Nebula. It is very faint and difficult to image; from inner city skies, imaging is almost impossible. This image is a cropped version of a much wider field captured by the RASA. The Cigar is a starburst galaxy and has been deformed by the tidal forces from M81.Stars are forming in M82 at about 100 times the rate they form in our own Milky Way. I have also attached an annotated image showing other galaxies in the wider field.
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