This first light image from the RC-16 was shot on a hazy moonlit night. This is M82 in Ursula Major, a favorite of many astrophotographers because of the unusual characteristics eminating from the center of this edge on spiral galaxy. This was imaged with an SBIG ST-10XME and A0-7 at prime (f/9). An LLRGB image (6x10 minute exposures of L, R. G and B). Images aquired with CCDAutopilot II and CCDSoft. Processed with Maxim DL, Adobe CS and deconvoluted with AIP. Deconvolution significantly improved the "relative" seeing to approximately 2 arc-sec/pixel (FWHM of 6.00 pixels, image scale of 0.38 arc-sec and 'rough' conversion factor of 80% gives 6 x .38 x .8 = 1.84 arc-sec). Of note, this image was taken before the RC-16 was properly collimated.
Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034 or the Cigar Galaxy) is the prototype nearby starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The starburst galaxy is five times as bright as the whole Milky Way and one hundred times as bright as our galaxy's center.
In 2005, the Hubble revealed 197 young massive clusters in the starburst core. The average mass of these clusters is around 2 × 105 M⊙, hence the starburst core is a very energetic and high-density environment. Throughout the galaxy's center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way Galaxy.
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