Bigger than the Milky Way

Our Milky Way Galaxy is a big place. If you were to travel at the speed of light (approximately 186,000 miles per second), it would take you 100,000 years to cover the diameter of the galaxy. The galaxy below, M101 or the Pinwheel Galaxy, is 70% bigger than that! At 170,000 light years across, it's rather ginormous.

But at 21 million light years away, it's little more than a fuzzy speck in Ursa Major.

M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy
AG Optical 10" f/3.9 Newtonian telescope, FLI ML11002-C camera, Paramount ME II mount
45 minutes (3 x 15 minutes). No darks or flats.



Comments