M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy
M101 is a face-on spiral galaxy about 21 million light years from Earth. It is rather larger than our Milky Way, being 170,000 light years across as opposed to the Milky Way's 100,000 light year diameter. The many bright knots are H II regions -- emission nebulae -- where new stars are being formed. M101 contains an estimated 1 trillion stars.
2 min exposures: 3 R, 3 G, 3 B, and 7 luminosity
SBIG ST-8300M cooled CCD camera
Orion 8" F/3.9 Newtonian with Baader coma corrector
Shot and processed with Nebulosity
Taken June 15-16, 2017, Santa Cruz Mountains, California
