Messier 63 "The Sunflower Galaxy" (Jim Raskett)

Messier 63 "The Sunflower Galaxy"

From Wikipedia:

Messier 63 or M63, also known as NGC 5055 or the seldom-used Sunflower Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici with approximately 400 billion stars. M63 was first discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, then later verified by his colleague Charles Messier on June 14, 1779. The galaxy became listed as object 63 in the Messier Catalogue. In the mid-19th century, Anglo-Irish astronomer Lord Rosse identified spiral structures within the galaxy, making this one of the first galaxies in which such structure was identified.

The shape or morphology of this galaxy has a classification of SAbc, indicating a spiral form with no central bar feature (SA) and moderate to loosely wound arms (bc). There is a general lack of large-scale continuous spiral structure in visible light, so it is considered a flocculent galaxy. However, when observed in the near infrared, a symmetric, two-arm structure is seen. Each arm wraps 150° around the galaxy and extends out to 13,000 light-years (4,000 parsecs) from the nucleus.

M63 is a weakly active galaxy with a LINER nucleus – short for 'low-ionization nuclear emission-line region'. The existence of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the nucleus is uncertain; if it does exist, then the mass is estimated as (8.5±1.9)×108 M☉,[11] or around 850 million times the mass of the Sun.

A really nice two nighter following a troublesome session last month with with my Explore Scientific ED102. New profiles for both NINA and PHD2 seemed to be the ticket. Happy to get out for the 3rd and 4th nights so far this year.

This is a quick first through in processing. I like the result so far, so I wanted to upload it and work on a complete repro soon. I am struggling with GHS (did not use it with this image) and want to get a better understanding of it and go from there.

This is really a cool looking galaxy and I knew that resolution would be marginal with my 102mm scope with a 0.8FR/FF (571mm). The small sensor size of the ASI533MC-P helps, but I did a crop of approximately 50%, so pixel-peeping will show some defects, particularly in resolution.

Saturation bumps in Curves got both the galaxy colors and stars where they are. No other modifications besides a few tweaks in the new Adobe PS Camera Raw (I'm a big time fan!).

Thanks for looking and please comment. I do plan to do a repro from scratch soon, so hopefully, I can improve things a bit.

Jim

B

Description: Reprocess using GHS in combination with EZ SoftStretch. I like the softer look.

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: an SXT on the galaxy (GAME gradient mask) to remove the magenta stars. Light HDRMT with same mask to sharpen the dust lanes. Slight Curves adjustment

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: Cleaned up the background.

Uploaded: ...

G

Description: Yes, another revision, a record!
A comment was made to me by another AP colleague that mentioned that I might have over reduced the stars.
When I looked, I saw that I had reduced the stars so much as to wipe out many small faint fuzzies in the background.
This is the same process on the galaxy with the original un-reduced stars (except for BXT sharpening).
Comments welcome!

Jim

Uploaded: ...

H

Description: A bump in sharpness and exponential transformation.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9410933
PixInsight job	ZPXWOD6RVIVA11QQIQVO0QJKUEYLG0XS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h15m48s.53
RA (top/left)	13h18m15s.81
RA (top/right)	13h13m52s.31
RA (bottom/right)	13h13m23s.13
RA (bottom/left)	13h17m43s.24

Dec (center)	+42°01′46″.4
Dec (top/left)	+42°23′05″.3
Dec (top/right)	+42°28′54″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	+41°40′18″.9
Dec (bottom/left)	+41°34′31″.5

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