The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face on spiral galaxy about 25 million light years away. The objects light took 25 million years to reach my telescope. Impressive to say the least. The Pinwheel Galaxy, designated Messier 101 is in the constellation Ursa Major. M101 has a diameter of 170,000 light years and is larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy. This image is a 5-min exposure exposed for 100 minutes. Used 20 images and stacked and processed them to come up with a final result.

This image was taken in Fort Davis on April 1, 2011 at Zodiac Ranch where a friend of mine has his private observatory under the dark skies of southwest Texas.