Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

— Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law

Spiral Galaxy M81

Spiral Galaxy M81

It's been a very long winter (too many cold nights for this old man) and finally able to get out last night.  After setting up at 6:00 pm I went in to have a piece of Brown Derby and let the scope "cool down".  Then I went out and started taking 2 min unguided images of M81 in Ursa Major for 2 hours, followed by an unsuccessful try to use my guider.  Some images were damaged by flying objects in space, one in particular was the Space Station which flew by just prior to 8 pm (I believe that it was the SS as the STRIPE thru the image was wide and bright).  This image is a combination of 96 min.s processed in MaxIm DL/CCD and Photoshop CS4.  2-23-10