• Messier 63 in Canes Venatici, the Sunflower Galaxy
    • M63 in Canes Venatici, the Sunflower Galaxy
    M63 annotated
  • NGC 5055, M63, is a flocculent spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici
  • known as the Sunflower Galaxy.  It is in the M51 Group,
  • contains 400 billion stars, and is 29.3 Mly from us.
  • Hover over the picture for an annotated version
  • Date:  28 May 2022
  • FOV:  cropped to 45' × 30'; the major axis of M63 is about 13'
  • Telescope:  Stellarvue SVX102T + SFFX-1 (714mm, f/7)
  • Guiding:  ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
  • Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope
  • Computer:  ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
  • Mount:  iOptron CEM40
  • Camera:  ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS with gain 240
  • Filter:  Baader Light Pollution Moonglow filter with IR cut
  • Stacking:  Thirty 240 second frames using PixInsight
  • Calibration:  20 darks, 20 flats, 20 dark flats using PixInsight
  • Total Time:  2 hours
  • Processing:  Pixinsight – SPPC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT, DynCrop → Linear
  • MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Stars, Sat,
  • StarXT, MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Starless,
  • HDR646PhLm, Sat, PMath ~(~Stars*~Starless) → Blend, scale
  • Location:  Darling Hill Observatory in Vesper, NY