Messier 101 in Ursa Major
NGC 5457 or Messier 101 in Ursa Major.
The Pinwheel Galaxy is 23 mly away.
Hover over the image for an annotated view.
Date: 27 April 2025
FOV: cropped to 54' × 36'; the angular size of M101 is about 29 × 27'
Telescope: Orion 127mm Mak-Cass (1448mm, nominally 1540mm, f/12.1)
Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
SVBony SV165 Mini 40mm f/4 guide scope
Computer: ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
Mount: ZWO AM5
Camera: ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS with gain 90
Filter: none
Stacking: ninety-one 240 second frames using PixInsight
Calibration frames: 20 dark, 20 flat, 20 dark flat
Total Time: 6 hours 4 minutes
Processing: Pixinsight – SPCC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT → Linear
HTS, GHS, MStr, PixelMath MStr + GHS + HST → Stars,
Linear, StarXT, HTS, GHS, MStr,
PixelMath MStr + GHS + HST → Starless, HDRMST686PhLm
PixelMath ~(~Starless*~Stars) → Blend, Sat, DynCrop/Scale
Location: Stony Creek State Boat Launch near Henderson, NY