Cover: Full Image

Abstract

Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel galaxy, is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years away. Its small companion, NGC 5474, is a peculiar dwarf galaxy being distorted by the gravitational influence of the Pinwheel. This is a stacked image of 30x180 second exposures using an 11" RASA telescope and colour CMOS camera on the roof of the UofS Physics Building.  My collaborators were Brennan Rodgers (who helped with data collection and processing) and Emery Dlugan (helped with data collection). It was done "for fun," and so no supervisors were involved. However, the telescopes on the roof of the Physics Building are regularly used by students in Astronomy lab classes for research in photometry and spectroscopy.