Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)

The Pinwheel Galaxy, cataloged as M101 or NGC 5457, is a beautiful spiral galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major. It lies about 21 million light-years from Earth and spans a respectable 170,000 light-years – making it larger than our Milky Way.

It is a typical spiral galaxy with distinct arms filled with young blue stars, star-forming regions (H II regions), and dust lanes. Thanks to its almost "face-on" orientation toward us, it offers an ideal view of its structure and symmetry.

Acquisition

This time it is a galaxy; due to its size, it didn't fit into the frame, and also due to short integration (total exposure time), the photo is quite noisy.