The following image depicts the Sunflower Galaxy (Messier 63 (M63), also NGC5055 (new general catalogue)), is a spiral galaxy containing approximately 400 billion stars, located over 29 million light years from the Earth. The galaxy is located in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), and has a diameter of approximately 98,000 light years across. The galaxy is known for its bright yellow central disc. As well as a number of short spiral arm segments dotted with starburst regions and dust lanes. This is what gives the galalxy, its Sunflower name.
The Sunflower Galaxy is classified as a Spiral (SAbc) galaxy on the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification (reference
https://theksylive.com and search M63 to get more information. This galaxy is a flocculent spiral galaxy, because the galaxy arms are not well defined (that would be a “grand-design” spiral galaxy), instead the galaxy appears to have many discontinuous arms. The galaxy is part of the M51 Group, which also includes the Whirpool Galaxy (M51), the Cat’s Eye Galaxy (M94), and the M106 galaxy.
These pictures were shot with the IDAZ Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
- Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
- Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm
This image was processed in the one shot color format (OSC).These images that make up this picture were collected on March 16th & 17th, 2024, as the moon was approaching a half moon, with an average light across the two nights of 48%).
My Setup
- Celestron Edge HD 8” Setup
- Mount: EQ6R-Pro
- Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 8” with Celestron 0.7 Reducer – Focal Length is 1422mm with F7 aperture
- Guiding: Celestron OAG (Off-Axis Guider) and ZWO 290MM camera
- ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with IDAZ Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter
- Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard
- Integration Time: 9 Hours 45 Minutes; Lights (117 @ 300 seconds); Darks (20 @ 300 seconds); Flats (30) & Dark Flats (30)
- Image processing
- Image Processing: Pixinsight – Using videos from multiple youtube teachers and website. @Cosgrove’sCosmos (Thank you for your feedback), @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @Lukomatico (the recent galaxy processing videos have been very helpful) – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.
- Multiple Bill Blanshan scripts (Narrowband Normalization, Screen Stars, Star Reduction)
- Incorporated Russell Croman’s amazing products (Blur, Noise, and Star Xterminators) with the updated Blur Xterminator AI version 4.
- Basic workflow
- Linear Flow
- WBPP (WO Image has a 2x drizzle); Cosmetic Correction; Highest quality
- Dynamic Crop for stacking artifacts
- Gradient Correction Tool
- Autocolor Script
- BlurXterminator (correct only)
- SPCC
- BlurXterminator (ran SPF tool for minimum value; sharpen stars 0.25, star halos (0), sharpen nonstellar 0.90)
- NoiseXterminator (.5)
- o NonLinear Flow
- GHS Stretch (using Lukomatico’s sequence)
- Minor Curves Transformation (s curve)
- Using Range Selection (with Screening selected) to create mask
- Apply the Mask – Curves Transformation with Saturation to emphasize the galaxy colors
- LHE (32 & 64, with 10 bit) to improve galaxy detail
- SCNR for green on Star image (50%)
- NoiseXterminator (0.7)
- Annotate and save as .jpg
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