Summer is coming. Days will be even longer and unfortunately nights will become shorter. June and July nights are so short, that you can easily say it is never dark during the nights nearby summer solstice (that will take place this year on June, 21st in the morning). For the incoming summer heats I am presenting you M101 Galaxy also called “Pinwheel”. The galaxy was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain. He described his discovery using the words:
“nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large, 6′ to 7′ in diameter, between the left hand of Bootes and the tail of the great Bear. It is difficult to distinguish when one lits the [grating] wires.”
M101 galaxy (aka NGC5457) is face-on spiral galaxy placed about 21 million light years away. M101 is about 70% larger than our Milky Way. This galaxy is also known for its large and luminous H II regions. You can also easily notice the galaxy asymmetric shape. it is thought that M101 underwent a collision with some other galaxy and that caused this asymmetry.
At the picture also some quite faint and distant galaxies were recorded. At the frame in the picture below you can see a few of them. The four galaxies in the right part of the subframe belowe have radial velocity about 30000km/s. Last researches give us Huble constant value of 74,3 ± 2,1 (km/s)/Mpc. So these galaxies are about 1.3 billion light years away!
Picture has been taken as LRGB with exposure times 200:30:30:30 minutes and binning 1:2:2:2.
Clear skies!