M101 Pinwheel Galaxy First One Shot Colour Image

[JohnDeathridge]

M101 or NGC 5457 Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is about 170,000 light years in diameter, which makes it roughly 70 percent larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is 21 million light-years from earth and was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781.

Taken: 11th May 2023 from Tonbridge (Bortle 5)
Scope: William Optics FLT 91, f5.9
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Processing: 45 x 180s Bin1 dithered and drizzled 3hr total (PixInsight)


Gallery link

[Carole]

An excellent image for a first timer John.  Don;t worry you'll soon get the hang of uploading and posting on the Gallery.

Carole

[JohnDeathridge]

http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/albums/userpics/10110/normal_JRD_110523_m101_cropped.jpg

[Carole]

[The Thing]

Very nice John. You've got some good data.

FYI I use nested bbcode to put my images up from the gallery so you can click on the pic to get the big version. You can use the buttons to add the codes but it's tricky to get the nesting. To get the links right click on the appropriate image and copy the image link (not the page link).

Code Select Expand

[url=(url to big image)][size=1]Click for large version[/size][img](url to gallery small image)[/img][/url]

Hope that helps.

Duncan

[Roberto]

http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/displayimage-3-2521-_JRD_110523_m101_cropped_.html#top_display_media

John

Excellent image!  You captured the new supernova in M101!  See here: https://britastro.org/forums/topic/supernova-in-m101#post-617427

and a bit more formal:  https://www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/astronote/2023-123

If you took this one over several hours/nights, go back to your single shots and see when you can first start seeing it.  You may have caught it right at the beginning of its flare up.  The TNS may be interested in your data.

Roberto

[Carole]

I could not see the SN in John's image, but I will bow to your superior insight.

Carole

[MarkS]

Great image!  I wanted to catch the Supernova last night but the wind and sky conditions prevented me.  Hopefully tonight instead.

Mark

[Rick]

This APOD shows the SN location: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230522.html

[Rick]

Hope that helps.

I've used admin options to edit the top message. John, you'll be able to see how the code works if you open the top message for editing.