Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5422  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5474  ·  NGC 5477  ·  NGC 5485  ·  NGC 5486
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, Francesco Wueest
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, Francesco Wueest
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

he Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years (six megaparsecs) away in the constellation Ursa Major, first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.

On February 28, 2006, NASA and the ESA released a very detailed image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, which was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by Hubble Space Telescope at the time. The image was composed from 51 individual exposures, plus some extra ground-based photos.

On August 24, 2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, was discovered in M101. (wiki)

This time I had only 2 versions :-) The one that I have posted and the one that is less colorful. I decided for the more colored version as I have one already from last year out of my backyard which is a bit "flat"

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, Francesco Wueest