M101, Pinwheel Galaxy and friends

[crimbfighter]

A wide field view of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy! Imaged from my back yard over two nights and located in the constellation Ursa Major, this is a spiral galaxy some 25 million light years from Earth. The first image shows the galaxy with the stars, and the second image has the stars removed, leaving behind only galaxies! That's right, all of the visible objects in the second image are distant galaxies. I framed the image the way I did to highlight just how many distant galaxies are near M101.

-Astro-Tech AT130EDT 130mm f/7 telescope with a 0.8x reducer, making it a 728mm focal length, f/5.6 scope.
-ZWO ASI2600MC Pro cooled camera
-ZWO EAF focuser
-iOptron HAE43 Strain Wave Gear mount
-Optolong L-Pro light pollution filter
-Pegasus Astro Mini Powerbox
-Orion 60mm guide scope
-Orion Starshoot autoguider
-Controlled with a MeLE Quieter3Q mini PC running Windows

Software
-Sequence Generator Pro for acquisition
-PixInsight and Photoshop for image processing
-PHD2 guiding software

-120 x 180sec subexposures
-calibrated with 15 each darks, flats, and dark flats
-Total integration time of 6hrs

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[Jeff15]

An amazing image as usual....

 

[jeffashman]

Always wonderful shots!

 

[slat]

Wonderful as usual.

 

[wobe]

The zoom on these is awesome, detail in the spiral is incredible.

 

[crimbfighter]

The zoom on these is awesome, detail in the spiral is incredible.

Thanks! I wish I had more reach to get an even deeper look.