M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy
Description: spiral galaxy
A large face-on spiral galaxy with low surface brightness, it is about 7' in diameter, with a brighter core surrounded by an envelope, which sometimes can be seen to be spiral arms.
Although extended 22 arc minutes on photos and quite bright, only the central region of this galaxy is visible in smaller telescopes, best at low powers. Suggestions of the spiral arms can be glimpsed in telescopes starting from 4 inch as nebulous patches.. On photographs, however, the Pinwheel Galaxy M101 is revealed as one of the most prominent Grand Design spirals in the sky. While quite symmetric visually and in very short exposures that show only the central region, it is of remarkable un-symmetry, its core being considerably displaced from the center of the disk.