We present two-dimensional stellar and gaseous kinematics of the inner 119 × 255 pc2 of the LINER/Seyfert 1 galaxy M 81 on the basis of observations obtained with the Integral Field Unit of the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS-IFU) on the Gemini North telescope at a spatial resolution of ~10 pc, over the wavelength range 5600–7000 Å. Our goal is to map the gas-streaming motions toward the nucleus suggested by the presence of a dusty nuclear spiral previously observed in HST images (Simões Lopes et al. 2007). Such structures have been shown to be associated with inward gas motions in previous studies by our group (Fathi et al. 2006; Storchi-Bergmann et al. 2007).

We study the population of compact stellar clusters in M 81 using the HST/ACS images in the filters F435W, F606W and F814W that cover a total field of view of approximately 340 square arcmin, the largest area covered to date for this galaxy. We present details about the selection criteria, which were based on both morphological and photometrical features. The extracted sample of compact stellar clusters shows the presence of two cluster populations, a blue cluster group (young) with more than 300 objects, and a red cluster group (old) containing 138 objects. Surprisingly, the young group lacks clusters more massive than 10 000 M⊙ which are present in large numbers in its neighbor M 82. The luminosity function of the young group follows a power-law distribution with an index of 2.0. The luminosity function of the red group closely resembles that of the globular clusters in the Milky Way. Assuming an age of 5 Gyr, these red clusters have masses between 0.1 and 10 × 106 M⊙.