Chris Lasley

I’ve moved down the list from Messier 102 to Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. M101 was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain and added as one of the last entries in Charles Messier’s famous catalog. There is a bit of controversy over the possibility of Messier 101 and Messier 102 being duplicate entries. As I mentioned in my M102 post, M102 is commonly accepted today to be the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 5866.

I captured M101 using a 12.5 inch f/9 RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an SBIG ST10XME and AO7. The image is a combination of 12 – 10 minute exposures.