桌面酷图系列——桌面32——风车星系M101（建议采用“居中”或“拉抻”选项）

Image Credit：NASA, ESA, CFHT, NOAO; Acknowledgement - K.Kuntz (GSFC), F.Bresolin (U.Hawaii), J.Trauger (JPL), J.Mould (NOAO), Y.-H.Chu (U. Illinois)

                               
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来自：http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060302.html
原文：
Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic of M101 is touted as the largest, most detailed spiral galaxy view ever released from Hubble. The sharp image shows stunning features along the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.

译文（上海网上天文台 cliff编译）：
说明：壮丽的旋涡星系M101，是著名的梅西耶星团星云表所收录的最后一批天体
之一，但这绝不意味着可以忽视它的存在。庞大的M101跨度约17万光年，几乎是
我们银河系的两倍，它也是十九世纪时，罗西伯爵用他那硕大的巨型远镜所观测的
首批“螺旋星云”之一。要组合出上图这幅影像，除了要使用哈勃太空望远镜拍摄
的51张照片外，还要用上地面望远镜拍摄的影像数据，因此这张M101组合照片称
为哈勃太空望远镜号称公布于世最大最清晰的旋涡星系之影像。影像清楚地呈现出
正面盘上的恒星和尘埃之特殊风貌，以及从盘面透视出来的后方背景星系。M101
位于大熊座，距离我们约2500万光年。

译文来自：
http://www.astron.sh.cn/picbase/daily/060529/060529.htm

很漂亮的风车。