M101
Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major.
One of the most imaged galaxies is the
Grand
Spiral Messier 101 in the constellation
Ursa Major. Our view of this galaxy is "face on", that is, we
are seeing it as though looking down from above. From this perspective
M101 is sometimes referred to as the "Pinwheel
Galaxy". M101 is about 21 million light-years distant
and spans some 252,00 light-years across. Originally discovered by
Pierre Mechain in 1781, and confirmed by
Charles Messier as one of the last entries in his
catalog. For a highly detailed look at M101, see the
Hubble image and information from NASA.This image was made with my FSQ106 refractor and ASI294 MC Pro camera. The total exposure time was 18.3 hours from Oro Valley, AZ. Processing was done in MaximDL and Photoshop.
Full resolution crop:
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This page illustrates what can be photographed using amateur telescopes and a CCD camera. I currently use an SBIG STL11000M camera and have previously used SBIG and Starlight Xpress cameras, as well as a Cookbook 245 camera that I built myself. Many of the images o this web site were taken from my backyard near a busy street with several street lights. Not only is the CCD camera a great imaging tool, but it allows "real time" observation of objects not normally visible in areas with moderate-severe light pollution.
