Tag Archives: Pinwheel Galaxy

Triangulum Galaxy

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598, and is sometimes informally referred to as the Pinwheel Galaxy, a nickname it shares with Messier 101. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and about 44 other smaller galaxies. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Deep Sky Instruments RC10C
Imaging cameras: SBIG STL 11000M
Mounts: Astro-Physics 900GTO
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Deep Sky Instruments RC10C
Guiding cameras: SBIG STL 11000M
Accessories: Optec Pyxis rotator 3″
Resolution: 3863×2544
Dates: Oct. 5, 2014
Locations: Misty Valley Observatory
Frames: 112×600″
Integration: 18.7 hours
Avg. Moon age: 10.86 days
Avg. Moon phase: 83.71%
RA center: 23.488 degrees
DEC center: 30.679 degrees
Pixel scale: 0.995 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: -95.182 degrees
Field radius: 0.639 degrees

Аuthor: Marko Järveläinen

Astrophotography of the day of SPONLI, 10.11.2014

M101

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years (six megaparsecs) away in the constellation Ursa Major, first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries.
On February 28, 2006, NASA and the ESA released a very detailed image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, which was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by Hubble Space Telescope at the time. The image was composed from 51 individual exposures, plus some extra ground-based photos.
On August 24, 2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, was discovered in M101.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Sky-Watcher ED80
Imaging cameras: Canon 1100D
Mounts: Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro SyncScan
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Finder 8×50
Guiding cameras: QHYCCD QHY 5
Software: Adobe Photoshop CC, AstroSurf IRIS v5.59, Pleaides Astrophoto Pixinsight LE
Dates: March 7, 2014
Frames: 16×600″ ISO800 bin 1×1
Integration: 2.7 hours
Darks: ~6
Flats: ~15
Bias: ~49

Author: Pavel Syrin
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 22 Sep 2014

M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years (six megaparsecs) away in the constellation Ursa Major, first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries. On August 24, 2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, initially designated PTF 11kly, was discovered in M101. The supernova was visual magnitude17.2 at discovery and reached magnitude 9.9 at its peak. This was the fourth supernova recorded in M101. The first, SN 1909A, was discovered by Max Wolf in January 1909 and reached magnitude 12.1. SN 1951H reached magnitude 17.5 in September 1951 and SN 1970G reached magnitude 11.5 in January 1970.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Planewave Instruments CDK 12.5″ Corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph f/8
Imaging cameras: SBIG STXL 6303
Mounts: Paramount PME
Filters: Astrodon Ha, Astrodon Blue, Astrodon Green, Astrodon Red, Astrodon Luminance
Dates: June 15, 2014, June 18, 2014, July 3, 2014
Frames:
Astrodon Blue: 11×300″ bin 2×2
Astrodon Green: 7×300″ bin 2×2
Astrodon Ha: 5×600″ bin 1×1
Astrodon Luminance: 9×300″ bin 1×1
Astrodon Red: 9×300″ bin 2×2
Integration: 3.8 hours

Author: Giulio Ercolani
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 7 Aug 2014

M101: Pinwheel Galaxy

M101 is a relatively large galaxy compared to the Milky Way. With a diameter of 170,000 light-years it is seventy percent larger than the Milky Way. It has a disk mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses, along with a small central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses.

M101 is noted for its high population of H II regions, many of which are very large and bright. H II regions usually accompany the enormous clouds of high density molecular hydrogen gas contracting under their own gravitational force where stars form. H II regions are ionized by large numbers of extremely bright and hot young stars; those in M101 are capable of creating hot superbubbles. In a 1990 study, 1264 H II regions were cataloged in the galaxy. Three are prominent enough to receive New General Catalogue numbers – NGC 5461, NGC 5462, and NGC 5471.

M101 is a asymmetrical due to the tidal forces from interactions with its companion galaxies. These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101’s spiral arms that can be detected in ultraviolet images.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Ian King Ikharos 8″ RC
Imaging cameras: Atik 314L+
Mounts: Software Bisque Paramount MX
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope
Guiding cameras: QHYCCD QHY5
Software: PixInsight, Software Bisque CCDSoft 5, Software Bisque TheSkyX, iLanga AstroPlanner, Matt Thomas’s CCDCommander
Filters: Baader Luminance 36mm, Baader Red, Green, Blue 36mm
Accessories: Atik EFW2
Dates: March 15, 2013
Frames: 100×300″
Integration: 8.3 hours

Author: Colin McGill
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 04 July 2014

M101: the Pinwheel Galaxy

Another remarkable property of this galaxy is its huge and extremely bright H II regions, of which a total of about 3,000 can be seen on photographs. H II regions usually accompany the enormous clouds of high density molecular hydrogen gas contracting under their own gravitational force where stars form. H II regions are ionized by large numbers of extremely bright and hot young stars.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Explore Scientific ED102 APO
Imaging cameras: QSI 583 wsg
Mounts: Astro-Physics Mach 1 GTO
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Explore Scientific ED102 APO
Guiding cameras: SX Lodestar
Software: Maxim DL 5 MaximDL 5, Pleiades Astrophoto Pixinsight 1.8, Adobe Photoshop 6 CS
Filters: Astrodon LRGB CCD Imaging Filters (E-Series), Gen2

Autor: Daniele Malleo

AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI

23 January 2014

We select the best works of amateur astrophotographers with details of equipment, shooting processing etc.

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