This is M101, a nice spiral galaxy near the handle of the big dipper.  It is known as The Pinwheel Galaxy .  It is approximately 25 million light years away from the Milky Way.

This image was taken with an 8" F/8 Ritchey Cretien Astrograph and Canon 40D DSLR. Exposure settings are 30 x 5 mins. @ ISO 800 and imaged in Nebulosity. Processing in Images Plus and Photoshop CS5. 20 dark frames were subtracted. Guiding in PHD with a Stellavue 102mm and QHY5 camera.