Overview: M101 has a relatively close distance of about 22 million light years, which allows it to be studied in some detail. Recent evidence indicates that a close gravitational interaction with a neighboring galaxy created waves of high mass and condensed gas which continue to circle the galaxy. These waves compress existing gas and cause star formation. One result is that M101, also called the Pinwheel Galaxy, has several extremely bright star-forming regions (called HII regions) spread across its spiral arms. M101 is so large that its immense gravity distorts smaller nearby galaxies. Equipment & exposure: Televue NP-127 Takahashi NJP mount Meade DSI-Pro Unguided L 49x2min, R 40x1min, G 39x1min, B 37x85secs Saved as TIFs Processing Details: - Each channel separately stacked and registered in Registax - result saved as TIFs - Initial post-processing in Astra Image 2.0MAX - DDP - Post-processing in Photoshop-CS - noise reduction in NeatImage - manual gradient removal - separate tuning of the three color layers - Result exported as TIFS, converted to FITs - Alignment of the color channels in AS-IP - Final leves, curves and sharpening in Photoshop