by Quyen Hart, Space Telescope Science Institute

Join NASA’s Universe of Learning for an exciting opportunity to use real astronomical data and tools to create your own beautiful images of the iconic starburst galaxy M82.

You can capture your own real-time telescope image of M82 using the MicroObservatory robotic telescope network, or you can work with an archived set of NASA data files of M82, taken with 4 multi-wavelength space telescope missions: Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and GALEX.

The challenges include instructions on how to turn those data into beautiful composite images with a simple version of an image processing tool used by professional astronomers.  Submit your astrophoto creations to the challenge and they may be highlighted as standout entries commented on by NASA experts.

Enter the challenge, here: https://mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu/OWN/astrophoto.  The challenge is open from December 2019 – February 2020.

Learn more about how to use the MicroObservatory via this archived webinar: https://youtu.be/WADvgNMSoiQ

You can also learn more about other opportunities to discover the universe for yourself at NASA’s Universe of Learning