George Johnstone Stoney, LdR's assistant, discovered the numerous knots in M101 during observations made in Apr and May 1851. Samuel Hunter made a remarkly accurate sketch of M101, along with the various knots, in Apr 1861 based on multiple observations. John Herschel estimated the position in the GC based on this sketch.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/7/97): this is a difficult, low contrast HII region in M101 located ~5' WNW of center. Appears very faint, extremely small, round, starry center?

600/800mm - 24" (5/24/20): at 375x; this M101 HII region appeared faint and pretty faint, small, round, 12" to 15" diameter. Nearly collinear the mag 12.9 star 1.3' N of center of M101 and a mag 13.6 star 3.4' NW of center. Two mag 15.5-16 stars are 1' SW.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb