Messier 101
#REDIRECT Pinwheel Galaxy 101 Messier 101 #REDIRECT Pinwheel Galaxy 101 Messier 101 #REDIRECT Pinwheel Galaxy 101 101 may refer to: * 101 (number), the number * AD 101, a year in the 2nd century AD * 101 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC It may also refer to: Entertainment * ''101' ...

Pinwheel Galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and was communicated that year to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the ''Messier Catalogue'' as one of its final entries. On February 28, 2006, NASA and the European Space Agency released a very detailed image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, which was the largest and most-detailed image of a galaxy by Hubble Space Telescope at the time. The image was composed of 51 individual exposures, plus some extra ground-based photos. On August 24, 2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, was discovered in M101. Discovery Pierre Méchain, the discoverer of the galaxy, described it as a "nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large, 6' to 7' in diameter, between the left hand of Bootes and the tail of the great Bear. It is difficult to distinguish when one lits the [grating] wires ...
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Messier Objects
The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his ''Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles'' (''Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters''). Because Messier was only interested in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them. The compilation of this list, in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, is known as ''the Messier catalogue''. This catalogue of objects is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, and many Messier objects are still referenced by their Messier numbers. The catalogue includes most of the astronomical deep-sky objects that can easily be observed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere; many Messier objects are popular targets for amateur astronomers. A preliminary version first appeared in 1774 in the ''Memoirs'' of the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1771. The first version of Messier's catalogue contain ...
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