M82 - Cigar Galaxy
Technical details.
Taken through a VC200L Vixen telescope at prime focus (f = 1800mm, D = 200mm, f 9)
Camera used Canon 20Da 32 exposures each of 30s at iso 3200. Stacked using ImagesPlus and processed in Photoshop.
Taken in September 2007 at the Kelling Heath star party, Norfolk, UK.

M82
This irregular galaxy lies in the constellation Ursa Major and is close in the sky to the spiral galaxy M81. Their distances are however quite different. M82 is 17 million light-years away (M81 is 4.5 million light-years away)