Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 63  ·  NGC 5055  ·  Sunflower Galaxy
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M63 The Sunflower and surroundings - LRGB & Halpha, Mathieu Guinot
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M63 The Sunflower and surroundings - LRGB & Halpha

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M63 The Sunflower and surroundings - LRGB & Halpha, Mathieu Guinot
Powered byPixInsight

M63 The Sunflower and surroundings - LRGB & Halpha

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Description

The famous Sunflower Galaxy, Messier 63 (or NGC 5055), is a spiral galaxy located about 29 millions light-years away in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici.
The shape or morphology of this galaxy has a classification of SAbc, indicating a spiral form with no central bar (SA) and moderate to loosely wound arms (bc).
As there is a general lack of large-scale continuous spiral structure in visible light,  it is considered a flocculent galaxy. However, when observed in the near infrared, a symmetric two-arm structure is seen with each arm wrapping 150° around the galaxy and extending out to 13,000 light-years from the nucleus.

The halo feature around M63  is consistent with a giant stellar stream that originated from the accretion of a dwarf satellite sometime within the last 5 billion years.

There is quite a lot of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the area!

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M63 The Sunflower and surroundings - LRGB & Halpha, Mathieu Guinot

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