Hubble's Largest Galaxy Portrait Offers a New High-Definition View

Spiral galaxy M101 is located in the northern constellation Ursa Major. A "zoom" into the galaxy first reveals its location in the nighttime sky. Pushing past Ursa Major into the center of M101 reveals the details in the spiral arms. Technical facts about this news release: About the Object Object Name: M101 (NGC 5457, The Pinwheel Galaxy) Object Description: Face-on Spiral Galaxy Position (J2000): R.A. 14h 03m 13s Dec. +54° 20' 53" Constellation: Ursa Major Distance: 25 million light-years (8 Megaparsecs) About the Data Data Description: This image was created from HST data from proposals 9490: K.D. Kuntz (JHU/GSFC), P. Barmby and J.P. Huchra (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), K. Mukai, S.L. Snowden, and W.D. Pence (Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, GSFC), and J.P. Brodie (University of California, Santa Cruz). Other proposals used include: * Fabio Bresolin (proposal 9492) * John Trauger (proposal 5210) * Jeremy Mould (proposal 5397) * You-Hou Chu (proposal 6829) The Hubble exposures have been superimposed onto ground-based images, visible at the edge of the image, taken at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, and at the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona. Instrument: ACS/WFC, WFPC2 Exposure Date(s): March 1994, September 1994, June 1999, November 2002, and January 2003 Filters: F435W("B"), F555W("V"), F814W("I") About the Image Image Credit: NASA and ESA Release Date: February 28, 2006 Orientation: Hubble's Largest Galaxy Portrait Offers a New High-Definition View [ http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/10/images/a/formats/compass_large_web... ] What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Giant galaxies weren?t assembled in a day. Neither was this Hubble Space Telescope image of the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101 (M101). It is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy that has ever been released from Hubble. The galaxy?s portrait is actually composed of 51 individual exposures taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in March 1994, September 1994, June 1999, November 2002, and January 2003. The newly composed image also includes elements from images from ground-based photos.

Producer: *Credit:* ESA [ http://www.spacetelescope.org/ ], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ], Three Rivers Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, Panther Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey II, and M. Kornmesse (Hubble Europe/ESA [ http://www.spacetelescope.org/ ])

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