36 million light years away – or 8.700.000.000 trips around the world! That’s the approximate distance to the Sunflower Galaxy which also has the boring acronym M63.
Tonight I decided to point my 8″ Newton telescope to this object to have a closer look. Even if I only had 2 hours of time I am still satisfied with the result. Personally, I think a sunflower looks a little different – anyway I like the shape and the structure of this object. M63 is located in constellation Canes Venatici and is not “so far” away from M51. Its apparent magnitude is about 9.3mag. Besides, I already targeted M63 a few years ago, but this new result I think is much better.
 | Date | 2016/05/02 |
 | Location | Böblingen / Germany |
 | Object | Sunflower Galaxy (M63) |
 | Camera | Atik383L+ |
 | Guiding | yes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG |
 | Telescope | 8" GSO Newtonian |
 | Barlow lens | none |
 | Mount | EQ6Syntrek |
 | Cooling | -15°C |
 | Luminance | 4x, 600s, bin: 1x1 |
 | Red | 4x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Green | 4x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Blue | 4x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Dark | 2x |
 | Flat | 10x |
 | Total exposure | ~1h10min. |
Clear skies!
Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 14:09 pm