Spiral galaxy M81, Hubble Space Telescope image. This was the sharpest image ever taken of M81 when it was released in May 2007. The data were collected between 2004 and 2006 by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on Hubble. Despite lying 11.6 million light years away, individual stars can be identified, and numerous open star clusters, globular clusters and nebulae can be seen. M81 is the largest member of the M81 Group, one of the nearest groups of galaxies to our own Local Group (which includes our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy). M81 is located in the constellation Ursa Major. *The 70Mb hi-res file is a resized version of the original, which is 1Gb in size. Please contact SPL if you would like the full size image*