M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

After over a month of absolutely miserable night skies, I caught a break last night.  I captured two targets.  The first was M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy.  The second will be in a second post, the Hamburger Galaxy, NGC 3628 in Leo.  I've shot this in the past, but this go, I used Russell Croman's Blur xTerminator and other tools - which really brought out the details in the core of the galaxy.

Information: 
The Pinwheel Galaxy (aka: Messier 101) is located near the tail of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) about 1 degree from Alkaid.  It is a spiral galaxy with breathtaking arms that appear top-down from earth.  The galaxy is high in the northern sky this time of year.   

From NASA:
The giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across — nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulas. These nebulas are areas of intense star formation within giant molecular hydrogen clouds. Brilliant, young clusters of hot, blue, newborn stars trace out the spiral arms.

Pierre Méchain, one of Charles Messier’s colleagues, discovered the Pinwheel galaxy in 1781. Located 25 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major, M101 has an apparent magnitude of 7.9. It can be spotted through a small telescope and is most easily observed during April.  

Date: 2023-03-30 
Location: The Westport Astronomical Society, Westport, CT

Lights: 22 @ 180s, no filters, ISO 1600
Flats: 30
Flat Darks: 30
Darks: 30
Bias: 110
Camera: Nikon D750a, 

Telescope: 14" Celstron EdgeHD SCT, no reducer, 3910mm FL
Guiding Scope: 102mm refreactor
Filters: None
Mount: Astrophysics 1200 GTO
Software Guiding: PHD2
Software - Telescope Control: The Sky
Software - Integration - PixInsight
Software - Finishing: Photoshop CC, NIK Tools Silver Efex 3.0, 
Software - Blur xTerminator, Star xTerminator, Noise xTerminator

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