M81 is among the nearest and brightest spiral galaxies, easily visible
with small telescopes. Recent results from the Hubble Space Telescope
place its distance at 11.7 million light-years. This is the brightest
galaxy in one of the groups of galaxies nearest our own Local Group.
It is interacting with the neighboring starburst galaxy M82 and weakly
with the more distant neighor NGC 30.

88 minutes luminance, 30 minutes each red, green and blue. Sub exposures
were 3 minutes in duration and 56 were used in creating this image.