- Cougar Mountain is a hilly horseshoe-shaped mountain sharing a regional park with the same name, in Washington State. Located south of I-90 between Bellevue and Issaquah, Cougar Mountain is the western region of the Issaquah Alps. Cougar Mountain has the unique ability of being located very close to a metropolitan area while maintaining much of its natural state. As a result, Cougar Mountain is one of the most hiked peaks in the entire state of Washington.
- Issaquah Alps (summitpost.org)
The region known as the Issaquah Alps is a mountainous area of Washington State located east of the Seattle suburbs. The name “Issaquah Alps” is credited as being coined by Harvey Manning in 1976, and includes low-elevation mountains that face I-90 between Bellevue and North Bend. The major mountains of this area are Cougar Mountain on the western side, Squak Mountain and the various Tiger Mountain peaks (West Tiger, Middle Tiger, East Tiger, South Tiger) in the center of the area, and Rattlesnake Mountain on the eastern side of the area. Rattlesnake Mountain connects the Issaquah Alps to a section of the Cascade Mountains along I-90. Other major highpoints within the Issaquah Alps include Taylor Mountain, Grand Ridge, and Mitchell Hill.
- Whirlpool Galaxy (Wikipedia)
The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a (M51a) or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. It is 7.22 megaparsecs (23.5 million light-years) away and 23.58 kiloparsecs (76,900 ly) in diameter.