Last night I had fairly clear skies and thought I could get a few good shots of M101 and possibly some hint of the supernova 2023ixf, which I think shows in my image next to NGC6451.  I think I will go form more subs stick with 300sec exposures, maybe add my L-Enhance filter vs no filter.  However this image was way better than my 1st attempt earlier in May, so I deleted that version and am sticking with this much better image in my opinion.  I will give M101 another go the next couple of clear nights, if I can.

Information of M101 from Messier-Objects.com:Messier 101 (M101), also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The Pinwheel Galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 7.86 and lies at a distance of 20.9 million light years from Earth. It has the designation NGC 5457 in the New General Catalogue.

The galaxy appears face-on and occupies an area of 28.8 by 26.9 arc minutes of apparent sky, which corresponds to a linear diameter of about 170,000 light years. The galaxy is quite large, but has a low surface brightness and requires exceptionally clear, moonless skies to be seen, even in medium-sized telescopes.The Pinwheel Galaxy can be spotted in 10×50 binoculars under exceptionally good conditions, but only appears as a large, faint patch of light. Small telescopes only reveal the galaxy’s brighter central region, while the spiral structure appears as patchy nebulosity in 4-inch instruments. 8-inch telescopes show the galaxy’s dense core surrounded by a fainter halo dotted with patches of nebulosity and hinting at the spiral structure.Messier 101 is easy to find because it is located just above the handle of the Big Dipper. It forms a triangle with Alkaid and the double star Mizar/Alcor. It can be found 5.5 degrees northeast of Alkaid and at the same angular separation from Mizar. The best time of year to observe the Pinwheel Galaxy is during the spring.

Messier 101 is estimated to contain 1 trillion stars. Young and old stars appear to be evenly distributed along the galaxy’s spiral arms, as revealed by combined images of M101 in visible, infrared and X-ray wavelengths.The galaxy has an unusually high number of H II regions, where new stars form, and many of these regions are bright and large, ionized by many extremely luminous and hot young stars. Observations in 1991 led to the discovery of 1,264 H II regions in M101. Three of these were bright enough to get their own designations in the New General Catalogue: NGC 5461, NGC 5462 and NGC 5471.With a linear extension of 170,000 light years, the Pinwheel Galaxy is about 70 percent larger than the Milky Way. The estimated mass of M101’s disk is about 100 billion solar masses, while its small central bulge has a mass 3 billion times that of the Sun. The galaxy has an absolute magnitude of -21.6, corresponding to a luminosity of 30 billion Suns.The galaxy does not appear to have a supermassive black hole at its centre, as observations in radio and X-ray wavelengths have not detected a strong source of emissions in the galactic core.The Pinwheel Galaxy appears symmetric in images that only reveal its central region, but is really quite asymmetrical as a result of interactions with smaller companion galaxies. The galaxy’s core is displaced from the centre, likely as a result of a collision in the recent past.M101 has five prominent companions: NGC 5204, NGC 5474, NGC 5477, NGC 5585 and Holmberg IV. Gravitational interaction with these galaxies is suspected to have triggered the formation of the grand design structure in M101 and distorted NGC 5474.

The Pinwheel Galaxy and its companions form the M101 Group, a group of at least nine galaxies centred on M101. In addition to the Pinwheel’s companions, probable group members include the galaxies NGC 5238, UGC 8508 and UGC 9405.An image of M101 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy to date, composed from 51 individual exposures and several ground-based images.Three supernovae were discovered in M101 in the 20th century: SN 1909A (peculiar type, mag. +12.1) in January 1909 SN 1951H (Type II, mag. +17.5) in September 1951, and SN 1970G (Type II, mag. +11.5) in January 1970.Another supernova was detected in the Pinwheel Galaxy by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) on August 24, 2011 at magnitude 17.2. Designated as SN 2011fe, it was classified as a Type Ia supernova, one triggered by a violent explosion of a white dwarf. It brightened to magnitude 9.9 around September 10 and was the nearest supernova seen since 1987.

Observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory identified the X-ray source P98 as an ultra-luminous X-ray source in 2001. An ultra-luminous X-ray source is a source of X-ray emissions more powerful than a single star, but not as powerful as an entire galaxy. The source was designated as M101 ULX-1. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and ESA’s orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton revealed that the source had an optical counterpart, indicating that it was an X-ray binary system.Messier 101 was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781