The Pinwheel Galaxy M101 
Here is a wide field view of the Pinwheel Galaxy. Catalogued as M101, the Pinwheel is a nice face-on spiral galaxy. It lies in the northern constellation Ursa Major (The Big Bear), at a distance of 25 million light-years from Earth.
The bright blue star at right is 86 UMa, barely visible at the naked eye from a dark site. Also visible some other nice galaxies like NGC 5474 (below under M101), NGC 5473 (just above M101), NGC 5485 (at left edge), NGC 5422 (at top edge) and UGC 8837 (near 86 UMa).
Full-res file is about 126 Megapixels with a resolution of about 1 arcsec per pixel. It shows an area of sky large 2,3° x 1,7° (for comparison, the full-Moon has a diameter of about 0,5°).
The image is available for Museum, Planetariums, exhibitions, publishers and authors in very high-resolution. If interested in using the image, please read my policy or e-mail me with your request. Copyright: Davide De Martin.
This color image is based on data coming from several photographic plates taken between 1993 and 1996 through the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1,2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II). The photographs were recorded on two type of glass photographic plates - one sensitive to red light and the other to blue and later they were digitized. Credit: Caltech, Palomar Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey. |
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