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M101 - Pinwheel galaxy with supernova

This large faint galaxy has a delightful shape.

Six months ago, there was a supernova explosion which is still visible.

 

"The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major

With a diameter of 170,000 light-years M101 is seventy percent larger than 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." Wikipedia

 

Celestron C8 SCT on Orion Sirius GEM. f6.3 Focal reducer. Good transparency and bad seeing. 58°F, and no moon.

 

Autoguiding with Orion SSAG, magnificent mini guide scope, and PhD.

 

2" adapters and 2" Hutech IDAS LPR filter.

 

Nikon D5100 at prime focus at 1600 ASA, Mostly 4 minute exposures. 59 min. total light exposure.

 

Stacked in DSS With dark, flat, and bias frames. Processed in Lightroom.

Thanks to Lily

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Uploaded on May 17, 2012
Taken on May 15, 2012