Stellar Shot of the Week: August 13, 2021
"M81 and M82 in Ursa Major" - by Ken Walker
Congratulations to this week's Stellar Shot selection, which goes to Ken Walker and his absolutely beautiful shot of Messier 81 and 82. I know we've had a lot of this target in 2021, but you all keep submitting such amazing images we just can't help it! Particularly impressive here is how well the hydrogen alpha star-forming regions pop out (the red stuff), despite this having been a strictly broadband image with just LRGB filters. Ken noted by email that he purposefully processed out some of the surround flux nebula due to the prevalence of light pollution, although just the fact that he had any IFN to work with in the first place is impressive by itself! The vibrant colors and well-pronounced details make this image a joy to look at, and the star colors really pop throughout the image as well
The rest of Ken's work can be seen on his Flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwalker501/, so please make sure to head over there and give him a follow. Please also make sure to submit your own images to us by email too (mail@stellarvue.com) or by tagging them on social media with #stellarvue and #stellarshot.
The technical details of this shot are as follows:
- 12 Million light years from earth
- 27xLRGB Astronomik type 2c
- QSI 583wsg
- Stellarvue SVX102T-R w/flattener
- Losmandy G11T
- Lodestar X2
- PixInsight
