Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 63  ·  NGC 5055  ·  Sunflower galaxy

Image of the day 05/23/2015

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M 63, Lorenzo Siciliano
M 63
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M 63

Image of the day 05/23/2015

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M 63, Lorenzo Siciliano
M 63
Powered byPixInsight

M 63

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Hi all.

In your opinion, could it be called "sunflower galaxy" yet?

This rendition is from a collaboration among three Astrobinners, Detlef Hartmann, Colin McGill and me.

We collected a very high count of photons in the current and in the past years on this object, and putted them in the same bucket: and this is the result!

Look at the structured halo surrounding the galaxy, a clear indication of an ancient interaction with other galaxies, maybe already merged with the greater spiral one.

The field is not so wide to encompass the whole canopy of tidal streams surrounding this beauty, but is enough to amaze and to mesmerize.

I'm really amazed with respect to what we can do in these years with our gear! And guess what we could do in the future!!!!

Thanks heartly to Colin and Detlef, who provide me their absolutely amazing raw data. It was a real pleasure to process such a wonderful dataset.

Kudos to you, mates!

Enjoy!

Tech data

Telescopes:

Celestron C11

Newton 443/2048

Ian King Ikharos RC 8"

Cameras:

ST8XME + AO8 + CFW10

ST10XME + AO8 + CFW9

Atik 460EX

Exposure time:

Total 36 h

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M 63, Lorenzo Siciliano

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