The Flickr Grandspiral Image Generatr

The Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 101 (M101), is one of the best known spiral galaxies in the night sky.

M101 is a grand design spiral galaxy (a spiral galaxy with prominent and well-defined spiral arms) located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is about 170,000 light years in diameter, which makes it roughly 70 percent larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way.

It is approximately 20.9 million light years distant from Earth, which means that we are seeing it as it was about 20.9 million years ago.

~~~~~

Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus 256G
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: Optolong L-Pro filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:
Lights 93 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flats 30 at 1.08 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flats 30 at 1.08 seconds gain 101 temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.
Processed in PixInsight
Added captions in Photoshop CS4

At last, a clear night. I took this image with my Celestron 5" telescope, stacking over forty 5-minute exposures and combining flat frames and dark frames to eliminate unwanted noise. The fuzzy patches surrounding the central spiral galaxy are even more galaxies. That's a lot of stars for one small photo.

This spiral galaxy in the middle is known as M100. Boring, but it hasn't been given any other name. It is tucked behind the constellation of Leo in Coma Berenices.

According to NASA, M100 is a stunning example of a grand-design spiral galaxy. The dusty spiral arms swirl around the galaxy’s nucleus and are marked by a flurry of star formation. M100’s characteristic arms also host several small black holes, including the youngest one ever observed in our cosmic neighbourhood.

The galaxy was discovered in 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, Charles Messier’s fellow comet hunter who discovered eight comets in his lifetime. M100 is located 56 million light-years away from Earth and appears dim in the night sky. Its apparent magnitude of 10.1 means that, while it can be seen through small telescopes, it will appear only as a faint patch of light. Larger telescopes can resolve more details of this galaxy. M100 is located in the constellation Coma Berenices and is best observed during May.


Telescope: Celestron C5 Schmidt Cassegrain OTA with 0.63x flattener/reducer.
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C
Filter: Optolong L-pro filter
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam
Guide via: ZWO OAG

Stacked from:
Lights 46 at 300 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Darks 20 at 300 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C
Flats 30 at 50.0ms, gain 101, temp -10C
Dark Flats 30 at 50.0ms, gain 101, temp -10C

Bortle 4 sky.
Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor and adjusted in Photoshop CS4.