Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 63  ·  NGC 5055  ·  Sunflower Galaxy
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M63 - Sunflower Galaxy, Paul Ricker
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M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M63 - Sunflower Galaxy, Paul Ricker
Powered byPixInsight

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

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Description

M63, the Sunflower Galaxy, is a flocculent spiral about 9 Mpc away in the M51 Group. In a much deeper image a number of tidal streams are visible. I was a bit disappointed not to get more dust lane color, particularly on the largest one. Will have to come back and get more data from a darker site.

My flats on the second night did not completely get rid of the dust donuts. Not sure what happened; I did move the scope before taking flats, so it's possible the dust moved a bit. Was finally able to reduce them to a manageable level by manually tweaking the flats.

Blended the final image with a version in which I repaired the brighter stars using StarTools. The brightest stars had some color artifacts that might have been due to guiding issues.

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M63 - Sunflower Galaxy, Paul Ricker