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A lovely pair of dissimilar galaxies close to each other in the sky, M81 is a classic spiral galaxy seen nearly face on while M82 (on the right) is a relatively irregular 'starburst' galaxy. As of 21 Jan 2014 this area became even more spectacular due to the appearance of an especially bright supernova, 2014J, inside galaxy M82. This is easily seen as the bright star below and slightly to the left of the center of M82 (and contained within it). This image was captured in late Jan 2014 when the supernova was about magnitude 11.5. The dim patch above M81 is UGC 5336, also known as Holmberg IX, an irregular dwarf galaxy that orbits M81 as a satellite.