Pinwheel Galaxy

Messier 101 (also known as NGC 5457, Pinwheel Galaxy or Pinwheel Galaxy ) is a spiral galaxy with dimensions of 28.8 ' x 26.9 ' and the apparent brightness of 7.5 mag in the constellation Ursa Major. Your distance is about 22 million light-years, its diameter is 170,000 light years

Observation history

Messier 101 was discovered on 27 March 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain. Several bright knots of M 101, where it is H II regions and / or star clouds are to be found under a separate entry in the NGC.

On February 28, published in 2006 NASA and ESA is a very impressive picture, the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy, which was created with the help of Hubble. The image was assembled from more than 51 recordings.

On 24 August 2011, a supernova of type Ia was discovered in M101, which received the designation SN 2011fe.

Other images

Infra -red- on -up of the SST

Infrared image through the telescope Herschel

M101 amateur recording