Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5422  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5474  ·  NGC 5485
Messier 101, Giuseppe Donatiello
Messier 101
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Messier 101

Messier 101, Giuseppe Donatiello
Messier 101
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Messier 101

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Description

Messier 101

Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello

RA 14h 03m 12.6s Dec +54° 20′ 57″

Messier 101 (NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years (6 Mpc) in the constellation Ursa Major and it was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781.

M101 is a large galaxy comparable in size to the Milky Way. With a diameter of 170,000 light-years it is roughly equal the size of the Milky Way. 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.

Composite image:

200 f/5 Newtonian telescope (during an instrumental test session)

127ED f/9 refractor

All the images were aligned and calibrated on the plate of Dss2 B.

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Messier 101, Giuseppe Donatiello