In the previous wide-field image of M101 numerous “small” galaxies can be found. One of the most interesting is NGC 5474.
NGC 5474 is a peculiar and rarely imaged dwarf galaxy located 21 million light-years away from us. This galaxy, which belongs to the Messier 101 Group, has a highly distorted shape: the galaxy disk is offset relative to the nucleus and the star formation (traced by hydrogen spectral line emission) is also offset from the nucleus. The cause of this distortion has generally been attributed to the gravitational pull of the nearby galaxy M101, however recent studies call this explanation into question.
This image has been made from the data set initially acquired for the previous M101 image (luminance acquired with TOA-150 & STL-11k and RGB with FSQ-106N & Canon 60Da), but also includes additional Hydrogen alpha filter sub-exposures. Processed with PixInsight including drizzle integration (x2).
Click on the image for a 100% version or go to the Gallery section for complete exposure details.
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