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

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M63 - Sonyashnyk, Tom Gray
Powered byPixInsight

M63 - Sonyashnyk

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Description

The sunflower (sonyashnyk) is the national flower of Ukraine, a symbol of light in dark and troubled times - our hope and prayers are with her people. 

M63 is an interesting galaxy in that it does not have clearly defined arms, rather it is a flocculent spiral, about 27 mLY away, spanning 100,000 LY.

A bright core with fine dust lanes, is surrounded by flocculation filled with young blue star clouds, and surrounded by an extended halo (just beginning to show in my image). A strange linear dust lane cuts across the left side of the disk. 

I am pleased with the signal, given just under 4 hours, collected under a bright moon. A longer integration would improve the noise reduction, although dark skies are needed to show off the outer halo/ star streams which loop over the galaxy.

This image was photo-bombed by at least 12 satellite trails! I had difficulty removing these with SD stacking, and have tried to 'heal' these - I may have to remove the offending frames from the stack.

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