Cosmic Photons Astrophotography : Pinwheel Galaxy M101

Every day our eyes catch the light of our memories – time spent with family, the journey to work, a special holiday, a beautiful sunset or a dark starlit night. Each image captured is a picture drawn in light – a photograph: only to be lost in our minds or forever forgotten. Nearly two hundred years ago a small group of amateur scientists achieved what had eluded mankind for centuries – the ability to capture a permanent record of an image seen by their own eyes – a moment in time frozen onto a surface. They had discovered Photography. They were the ‘Catchers of the Light’.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Pinwheel Galaxy M101

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy about 27 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and he subsequently communicated his discovery to Charles Messier who verified its position and added it to the Messier Catalogue as one of the final entries.
M101 is a relatively large galaxy compared to the Milky Way. With a diameter of 170,000 light-years it is nearly twice the size of the Milky Way. It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.

W.O FLT-110 with dedicated field flattener
EQ6 Pro
ST10XME
Lum    : 100min
Red    : 40min
Green : 40min
Blue    : 40min
5min subs
Total exposure 3h40min

2 comments:

Dentists Greece said...: Pali ta kataferes na me ekplixeis! Polu kalo apotelesma, kai eis anwtera!!!

O odontiatros sou; February 23, 2010 at 10:53 AM
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Thanks and good luck everyone! ;); February 27, 2010 at 1:49 AM