The Spiral Galaxy M101

The Sprial Galaxy M101
From the National Optical Astronomical Observatories
The well-known spiral galaxy M101 with the Kitt Peak National Observatory's 0.9-meter telescope and the wide-field imaging system Mosaic. This instrument combines the pictures from eight separate CCD chips, carefully mounted next to each other for a total of 8192 pixels square, and can thus image a large area without sacrificing resolution. M101 (NGC 5457) is a type Sc spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major and is quite similar to our own Galaxy.
Image Title: The Spiral Galaxy M101
Credit: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/AURA/NOAO/NSF
The text is based on accompanying on-line materials.

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  Last Modified On: Sunday, December 17, 2000