After nearly two months of waiting for my new camera to finally arrive (QHY268C), I was able to get 4 hours of observing on a night of middling seeing and some challenging light pollution issues before it started having hardware issues requiring shipping it back for replacement.
I love the arrangement of M81 and M82 next to each other in the sky, with one straight-on and the other seen from the edge, though it was a challenge to get this shot to turn out at all with the overall low-quality data I gathered. Apart from the environment issues, I also found strong ring artifacts in my data due to a poorly fitted connector leaking light into my imaging train. I plan on revisiting these galaxies in the future once I get my replacement camera.
M81 and M82
M81 (Bode’s Galaxy), top-left and M82 (the Cigar Galaxy), bottom-right. The two galaxies are an interacting pair, with the tidal forces of the larger M81 distorting M82 and driving massive amounts of new star formation. The red hydrogen plumes of starburst actiivty form M82 are faintly visible, extending outwards from the center of the galaxy.