Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)

The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years away from earth in the constellation Ursa Major.

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.

On August 24, 2011, a supernova was discovered in M101. M101 has five prominent companion galaxies: NGC 5204, NGC 5474, NGC 5477, NGC 5585, and Holmberg IV. (dixit Wikipedia)

This photo was taken from my garden with a scope (Newtonian 200/1000), my old mount (EQ6) and a CCD camera (Atik One 6.0), in black and white with R,G,B and L filters, for a total of 3 hours exposure in April 2016.

Technical detail of the photo here: https://www.astrobin.com/245749

If you want more information, ask me in comment !

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