Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 63  ·  NGC 5055  ·  Sunflower Galaxy
M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
Powered byPixInsight

M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy

Revision title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - galaxy focus

M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
Powered byPixInsight

M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy

Revision title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - galaxy focus

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici belonging to M51 Group located to the southeast of the M101 Group and the NGC 5866 Group. The distances to these three groups are similar, thus the M51 Group, the M101 Group, and the NGC 5866 Group are actually considered as part of a large, loose, elongated structure; cfr.: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9910501.
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.

According to Ann, Ha et Al., 2015 [cfr.: [url]https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03545] catalogation of visual classified galaxies in local Universe the shape or morphology of this galaxy has a classification of SAbc where SA indicating a spiral form with no central bar feature, and bc describes a moderate to loosely wound arms, as evinced from a visible light observation with general lack of large-scale continuous spiral structure, thus M63 is considered a flocculent galaxy.


According to Thornley, 1996, when observed in the near infrared, a symmetric, two-arm structure is seen and each arm wraps 150° around the galaxy and extends out to 13,000 light-years (4,000 par
secs) from the nucleus; cfr. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9607041.
According to Graham, 2008, the existence of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the nucleus is uncertain. If it’s true then its mass could be estimated as (8.5±1.9)×108 M☉, in few words around 850 million times the mass of our star the Sun; cfr.: https://arxiv.org/abs/0807.2549Tully, Courtois and Sorce researches focused on galaxy distances measured M63 at 29.300.000 light years, alias 8.99 megaparsec. Cfr.: https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.01765

In this work I use bundle observation from Telescopelive Spain 2 CCD Officina Stellare 700mm RC.
First, by PixInSight, Cosmetic Correction was required to better recalibrate subframes, especially removing vertical couple of lines. Then the same registration, integration, bg removing, spcc, deconvolution and denoising routine to generate LRGB masterframe, while in parallel, working on Luminance master for final Photoshop image reconstruction, with starless and stars levels blending – respectively in luminosity (L) and screen (Stars) mode.

Comments

Revisions

  • M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
    Original
  • M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
    B
  • M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
    C
  • M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
    D
  • Final
    M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera
    E

B

Title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - starless

Description: Starless data from PixInSight

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - cropping to nucleus

Description: Cropping to focus on the galaxy nucleus

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - cropping more up to nucelus

Description: Extreme cropping to best focus about galaxy nucleus and structures

Uploaded: ...

E

Title: M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy - galaxy focus

Description: Cropped and general adjustment review for better galaxy focusing

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower galaxy, Stefano Zamblera