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Contains:  Sunflower galaxy, M 63, NGC 5055
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M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower Galaxy, 


M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower Galaxy

M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower Galaxy

Technical card

Resolution: 2806x1900

Dates:April 27, 2019

Frames: 50x45"

Integration: 0.6 hours

Avg. Moon age: 22.65 days

Avg. Moon phase: 44.66% job: 2704936

RA center: 13h 15' 49"

DEC center: +42° 1' 40"

Pixel scale: 1.326 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: 158.495 degrees

Field radius: 0.624

Locations: Home, Houston, TX, United States

Data source: Backyard


M63 (NGC5055) or the Sunflower Galaxy is a spiral galaxy discovered in 1779 by Pierre Méchain and Charles Messier. However it was the Irish astronomer Lord Rosse that first identified its spiral structure. The fact that I am of Irish decent made me want to photograph this one as a shout out to all of the Irish astronomers in the history books. It is 130,000 light years across and approximately 29 million light years away. It is uncertain as to what lies at the center of this galaxy; some have postulated that it is (like many other spiral galaxies) a super-massive black hole. If this is correct, the black hole would be fairly large at 900,000,000 solar masses.

I worked hard (~30 hours) to achieve the "softness" and gaseous look of this galaxy while maintaining the sharpness of the interior features. I'm hoping that as I get better at Pixinsight that time will go down (for my and my wife's sake haha).



License: None (All rights reserved)

Sky plot

Sky plot


M63 (NGC5055) Sunflower Galaxy,