Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5447  ·  NGC 5449  ·  NGC 5450  ·  NGC 5451  ·  NGC 5453  ·  NGC 5455  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5461  ·  NGC 5462  ·  Pinwheel galaxy
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M101 Pinwheel galaxy, Mikael Lindkvist
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M101 Pinwheel galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M101 Pinwheel galaxy, Mikael Lindkvist
Powered byPixInsight

M101 Pinwheel galaxy

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Description

Excerpt 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) away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major.

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 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 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.


It is estimated that M101 has about 150 globular clusters, the same as the number of the Milky Way's globular clusters.

Constellation:    Ursa Major
Distance:    20.9 ± 1.8 Mly 
Apparent magnitude: 7.86
Number of stars: 1 trillion (10^12)
Size: ~170,000 ly in diameter

Platesolved focal length: 1383 mm

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M101 Pinwheel galaxy, Mikael Lindkvist