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M101 is a beautiful but faint spiral galaxy in the big dipper, it is frequently referred to as the "Pinwheel Galaxy". Most estimates have it at between 20 and 26 million light years distant. This galaxy is one of the most prominent of the "grand design spiral galaxies" and at first glance, it appears to have almost perfect symmetry. However, long exposure photographs reveal that it is actually tidaly disturbed and heavily weighted in one direction, most likely as a result of a passby with another galaxy. The above photo is the result of probably 6 nights under the stars during the month of May. Everything that could go wrong did! I was able to salvage two tech pan images to use as luminance and two photos shot on supra 400. The tech pan images were 90 and 150 minutes and the RGB images were 60 and 90 minutes respectively. The first of the two techpan shots was misframed, that's why you see a change in background darkness reflected as an edge to the bottom right of the photo. The second of the tech pan images I exposed for 150 minutes but I undoubtedly suffered reciprocity failure and/or humidity that night just caused the film to stop recording incoming photons. I'm in no hurry to try and photograph this object again! |
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