Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5477
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101, The pinwheel galaxy, Steven Bellavia
M101, The pinwheel galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M101, The pinwheel galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101, The pinwheel galaxy, Steven Bellavia
M101, The pinwheel galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M101, The pinwheel galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 (NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. Discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, it was communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalog as one of its final entries.

The giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across — nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulae. These nebulae are areas of intense star formation within giant molecular hydrogen clouds. Brilliant, young clusters of hot, blue, newborn stars trace out the spiral arms.

M101 has an apparent magnitude of 7.9. It can be spotted through a small telescope and is most easily observed during April.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M101, The pinwheel galaxy, Steven Bellavia

In these public groups

Imaged with APT

In these collections

Galaxies