M101 is a large spiral galaxy that is seen face-on. While difficult to see visually, it is an easy target for beginner astrophotographers.
 
This data was acquired with our refractor telescope at Utah Desert Remote Observatories, under exceptionally dark skies. It amounts to 35 hours of integration time, and is an overall impressive image that also contains the Hydrogen Alpha regions!
 
Equipment used:
Telescope: Stellarvue SVX130
Camera: 61 MegaPixel QHY600M
Mount: 10Micron GM1000HPS
Filters: 3nm Chroma
 
I used 4 filters for this object, so you will receive the master files for:
Hydrogen Alpha
Red
Green
Blue
 
I recommend stacking the RGB data like you would with any galaxy, and then include the HA data to reveal the star-forming regions in the spiral arms.
 
Learn exactly how to process this data from start to finish in the Galaxy Processing Guide, where this very data is used as the example.