M101 Pinwheel Galaxy – Douglas J Struble

Posted by Stellarvue on 3rd Aug 2020

This Pinwheel image was submitted by Douglas J Struble. He has shared numerous images with us and his Veil Nebula was last year’s StellarShot of the Year. For this image Douglas used his SVX102T-R to “Own the Night.” We’re are always glad to share Douglas’ images with you and this one is another keeper in our opinion. Douglas also wrote this:

Broadband is the hardest deep space astrophotography for me here in my red zone. I piled on more integration time adding it on to last year's data, as this may be the last time I work on M101 from here.

M101 is a large face-on spiral galaxy located 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. At magnitude +7.9, it can be glimpsed in binoculars or small telescopes from dark sites. However, this galaxy suffers from low surface brightness and in bad seeing conditions or light polluted areas is sometimes difficult to spot even with 200mm (8-inch) scopes. M101 is best seen from the Northern Hemisphere during the months of March, April and May.

M101 is also known as the Pinwheel galaxy and was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781. He described it as "nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large, 6' to 7' in diameter, between the left hand of Boötes and the tail of the great Bear." He communicated this to Charles Messier, who verified its position and then included it in his catalogue as one of the final entries.

Details:
Object: M101 Pinwheel Galaxy in HaLRGB (Red Zone)
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 6.1
Completion Date: 5-26-19
Integration Time: 56.5 Hours from a red Zone
Imaging Telescope: Stellarvue SVX102T-R
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-CooledBroadband is the hardest deep space astrophotography for me here in my red zone. I piled on more integration time adding it on to last year's data, as this may be the last time I work on M101 from here.