Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions (Richard Beck)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: M 101 · NGC 5422 · NGC 5447 · NGC 5449 · NGC 5450 · NGC 5451 · NGC 5453 · NGC 5455 · NGC 5457 · NGC 5461 · NGC 5462 · NGC 5471 · NGC 5473 · NGC 5474 · NGC 5477 · NGC 5484 · NGC 5485 · NGC 5486 · Pinwheel galaxy

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Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

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Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

Key galaxies in this frame of view are M101, NGC 5474 and NGC 5422.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years away 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 Catalogue as one of its final entries.

NGC 5474 to the right and down a bit from M101 is a peculiar dwarf galaxy. Among the Pinwheel Galaxy's companions, this galaxy is the closest to the Pinwheel Galaxy itself. The galaxy is strongly distorted by gravitational interaction with the Pinwheel Galaxy. As a result, the disk is offset relative to the nucleus. The star formation in this galaxy (as traced by hydrogen spectral line emission) is also offset from the nucleus.NGC 5474 shows some signs of a spiral structure. As a result, this galaxy is often classified as a dwarf spiral galaxy, a relatively rare group of dwarf galaxies.

I didn't find much information on NGC 5422 (near the upper left corner) in a Google search. It seems there should be more given its apparent size.

PixInsight processing included using Ha channel in RGB consistent with Edoardo Luca Radice's, Enhance HII regions in Spiral galaxies.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3461052
PixInsight job	DATWIDTWTOHZHNGKHBL6M2Z763AU50HI
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	14h03m12s.64
RA (top/left)	13h58m06s.37
RA (top/right)	13h59m11s.78
RA (bottom/right)	14h08m05s.21
RA (bottom/left)	14h07m25s.79

Dec (center)	+54°20′43″.6
Dec (top/left)	+55°16′50″.8
Dec (top/right)	+53°18′45″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+53°23′47″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+55°22′06″.9

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Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

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Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) and Companions

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