Cigar Galaxy
Where is the Cigar Galaxy?
Look northeast, about 54° up at 05:17 in Ursa Major.
- Rises
- Always up
- Highest
- 09:58
- Sets
- Never
- Best after dark
- 05:17 · 54°
Can I see the Cigar Galaxy tonight?
From London tonight, the Cigar Galaxy is above the horizon all night. It’s highest just before dawn, around 05:17, in the northeast at 54°.
At magnitude 8.3, with its light spread out, it needs a telescope and a dark sky.
This is position and timing only: clouds, haze and light pollution aren’t included.
What does the Cigar Galaxy look like?
Eyes
Not visible.
Binoculars
Under dark skies, a faint thin streak near the brighter oval of M81.
Telescope
A bright, elongated sliver. With 150 mm or more and dark skies, dark lanes cross its middle.
About the Cigar Galaxy
The Cigar Galaxy, M82, is seen almost edge-on, so it looks like a slender streak of light. It is about 12 million light-years away.
It is a starburst galaxy, forming stars many times faster than the Milky Way. Winds from those stars and their supernovae blow huge plumes of gas out above and below the disk.
A close encounter with its neighbor M81 is thought to have triggered this burst. In 2014 a supernova, SN 2014J, appeared in M82 and was bright enough for backyard telescopes.
Bode discovered M82 in 1774, alongside M81. It is about 40,000 light-years across.
Images in red light show glowing filaments of hydrogen erupting from its center, the superwind driven by its intense star formation.
M82 is about as bright as M81 overall, but its light is concentrated into a narrow streak, so it often looks more striking in a small telescope. The pair is well placed on spring evenings, though from mid-northern latitudes it is above the horizon all year.
Nearby in the sky
Questions
What is a starburst galaxy?
Sources: OpenNGC (CC BY-SA 4.0); star chart: Wikidata (CC0). Positions computed for your place and time with astronomy-engine. Data & Licences