M-101, Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major

M-101 (NGC-5457) also known as "The Pinwheel Galaxy", is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy located 21 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major. It is a huge galaxy, over 200,000 light years in diameter and containing over 1 Trillion stars. It was discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1781 and cataloged by Charles Messier that same year.
This image, taken on July 7, 2026, is a 2 hour 36 minute integration of 1 minute exposures through the Astro Tech AT-92 92mm APO triplet refractor using a ZWO 2600MC Pro CMOS color camera cooled to 0 degrees below ambient and binned 1 X 1. Captured with N.I.N.A, guided with PHD2, combined and processed in PixInsight. Post processed in PhotoShop 2026.