But man… they were hard to find.

It took me over an hour just to get them properly framed. Lots of nudging, checking, rechecking, and second-guessing. But then—finally—they showed up on my camera screen.

And that feeling? Unreal.

Tiny, faint, but there. For the first time in my life, I had captured photons that had traveled over 12 million light-years to reach my sensor. Absolutely mind-blowing.

M81 and M82 aren’t just close together in the sky—they’re also close out there in space. They’re part of the same M81 Group of galaxies and are gravitationally interacting. That’s actually what makes M82 (the Cigar Galaxy) look so wild—it’s in the middle of a starburst phase, likely triggered by M81 tugging at it with its gravity. It’s chaos, beauty, and cosmic drama all rolled into one frame.

This one’s going to stay with me for a while.

Previous Processed Images

Over time, my processing skills have improved. That’s why I occasionally return to old projects and rework everything from scratch—just to see what kind of results I can get now. It’s always nice to see how far I’ve come. So, here are all the versions (even the really bad ones)!