Finally an end to the drought of clear nights, if only for a single night!!!

M101 in monochrome was such a surprise compared to the results I have previously shooting with an OSC (2600MC) camera.  However, it is likely that an equal amount of credit is to the major upgrades/tool adds and improvements in PixInsight.

That being said, if yo compare this to my previous M101 posting, the difference is stark.  More color/color saturation and more detail than with the previous OSC version.

This is (IMO) a very good result since this is ALSO a cropped version of the original image.  With my Esprit 100ED_2600MM, M101 takes up only around 10% of the FoV.  Approximately 60-70% of the original image has been cropped to provide this image, yet there is still an amazing amount of detail available.

I did try some Oiii exposures to see if anything could be detected.  I was surprised to find that some Oiii details were very faintly visible, but I had so few exposures for the Oiii test that I didn't feel they added anything to this image.  Maybe if, just maybe, possibly, might be, a string of clear nights I might dedicate some time to just Oiii to see if something became apparent that was worthwhile.  Nothing in the wider field showed any Oiii at least in the 40 minutes of integration I allowed.

Posted image:
Ha: 20 x 240s
Lum: 30 x 180s
R: 30 x 180s
G: 20 x 180S
B: 20 x 180s

I will post the full widefield as well for comparison although not as the "Final" image.

Let me know what you think!

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From Wikipedia:

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years (6.4 megaparsecs)[3] away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781[a] and was communicated that year to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.

Pierre Méchain, the discoverer of the galaxy, described it as a "nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large, 6' to 7' in diameter, between the left hand of Bootes and the tail of the great Bear. It is difficult to distinguish when one lits the [grating] wires."

William Herschel wrote in 1784 that the galaxy was one of several which "...in my 7-, 10-, and 20-feet [focal length] reflectors shewed a mottled kind of nebulosity, which I shall call resolvable; so that I expect my present telescope will, perhaps, render the stars visible of which I suppose them to be composed."

Lord Rosse observed the galaxy in his 72-inch-diameter Newtonian reflector during the second half of the 19th century. He was the first to make extensive note of the spiral structure and made several sketches.

M101 is a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years. By comparison, the Milky Way has a diameter of between 100,000 and 120,000[12] light-years. It has around a trillion stars.[13] It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.[14] Its characteristics can be compared to those of Andromeda Galaxy.

M101 has a high population of H II regions, many of which are very large and bright. H II regions usually accompany the enormous clouds of high density molecular hydrogen gas contracting under their own gravitational force where stars form. H II regions are ionized by large numbers of extremely bright and hot young stars; those in M101 are capable of creating hot superbubbles.[15] In a 1990 study, 1,264 H II regions were cataloged in the galaxy.[16] Three are prominent enough to receive New General Catalogue numbers—NGC 5461, NGC 5462, and NGC 5471.

M101 is asymmetrical due to the tidal forces from interactions with its companion galaxies. These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101's spiral arms that can be detected in ultraviolet images.

In 2001, the X-ray source P98, located in M101, was identified as an ultra-luminous X-ray source—a source more powerful than any single star but less powerful than a whole galaxy—using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It received the designation M101 ULX-1. In 2005, Hubble and XMM-Newton observations showed the presence of an optical counterpart, strongly indicating that M101 ULX-1 is an X-ray binary.[19] Further observations showed that the system deviated from expected models—the black hole is just 20 to 30 solar masses, and consumes material (including captured stellar wind) at a higher rate than theory suggests.

It is estimated that M101 has about 150 globular clusters,[21] the same as the number of the Milky Way's globular clusters.
Full information on M101 can be found here along with links to other references: Pinwheel Galaxy - Wikipedia