Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5477
A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101, Steven Hanaway
A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101
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A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101

A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101, Steven Hanaway
A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101
Powered byPixInsight

A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101

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Good afternoon everyone. Today's astrophoto of the day is Messier 101, also known as The Pinwheel galaxy. This beautiful galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy that can be found in the constellation Ursa Major about 21 million light years away. This galaxy is very large, with a diameter of about 170,000 light years compared to the diameter of our own milky way galaxy which is just 100,000 light years across. This galaxy contains about a trillion stars, which have the mass of about 100 billion times that of our sun. This galaxy contains many HII (hydrogen 2) regions, which are star forming regions like nebulae which condense to form stars. Several of these HII regions are very bright and easily visible in my image. I hope you like today's photo. As always, Clear Skies!

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A Detailed Look At The Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 101, Steven Hanaway