Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5461  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5474
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours, riot1013
M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours
Powered byPixInsight

M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours, riot1013
M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours
Powered byPixInsight

M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

M101 is one of the largest galaxies in our night sky but also one of the faintest due to the very low surface brightness. It took a long time for me to actually see it for the first time with my own eyes and even longer for me to finally decide to image it.

Battling some really poor skies at time this image was a severe test of patience and determination for me. It culminated in what is, in my humble opinion at least, the best galaxy image that I have captured to this point.

I used my TeleVue NP101is for the vast majority of the integration but used my Explore Scientific 127ED FCD100 for about half of the LUM data. The extra focal length allowed me to pull details out of the galaxy that i may have not gotten with the TeleVue alone.

At 826min of integration I feel that I could maybe go a little deeper and I would love to put some Ha data as well, but I will let this image stand as is for now. It is one of the few images that I have done that just makes me smile when I look at it so I will leave well enough alone.

Comments

Revisions

  • M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours, riot1013
    Original
  • Final
    M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours, riot1013
    B

B

Description: subtle curves changes

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy, LRGB, 14.0 hours, riot1013