Galaxies
The Pinwheel Galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101), a face-on spiral in Ursa Major 21 million light-years away, photographed by Pete Lawrence.
Target details
The Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101) is a face-on spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, about 21 million light-years away. At 170,000 light-years across it's roughly the same size as the Milky Way. Its disc holds around 100 billion Suns' worth of mass, with a small central bulge of about 3 billion. M101 is known for its many large, bright H II regions – clouds of hydrogen lit up by young stars.
Capture details
Data captured 5th March, 2016.
21x 4 minute exposures at ISO400.
Equipment details
Orion Europa 200
NEQ6 Pro
Nikon d7100
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II
Processing details
This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.