On the night of February 22, 2020 I got out under the cold winter night. Considering it was February in northern NY, 33F really wasn't too bad. Winter nights have some of the best clear skies, and it is worth getting dressed up to get out under the stars for the crisp clear nights.
M 81 and M 82 are two galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major. These two galaxies not only appear close together in the eyepiece, but they are actually close in space both being around 12 million light years away from Earth.
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| Sketch of galaxies M81 and M82 in Ursa Major |
These two galaxies were tough to fit in the eyepiece of the 8" SCT, but the focal reducer allowed me to just get them into the field of view. I would like to attempt this sketch again with my lower powered 6" Newtonian, to get more field stars and a better view of these two galaxies. This sketch was done on February 22, 2020. I used my F6.3 focal reducer and my Highpoint Plossl 32mm eyepiece giving me ~40x magnification. As you can see, these two objects just barely fit into the FOV and would probably be better viewed as a pair with a lower power telescope, or lower power eyepiece.
A video of where to find these two objects in the night sky, along with a time lapse of the sketch itself is available on my YouTube channel , or can be watched below.
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