Messier 63 - The Sunflower Galaxy in HaLRGB (First Light on My New ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro Camera!)

May 22, 2021

Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0069

Messier 63 (click image for full resolution)

Awarded Flickr “Explore” Status May 22, 2021!

Published in Amateur Astrophotography Magazine!

April 9th, 2023 - In issue #111, p70-75. This image was published as part of a profile article on me!

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About the Project

After a string of 4 clear nights in late March, it's been a long time since we have had a stretch of clear moonless nights. So no astrophotography for me…

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First time I shot M63 was back in May of 2020. Here is the results of that effort. (Click to zoom)

In the meantime, I had upgraded one of my Astro cameras to a new camera known as the ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro. This is a mono camera based on a new generation of larger APS-C size sensors. It offers much higher resolution, a full 16-bits of dynamic range, outstanding noise characteristics, and a much deeper well capacity (which means I can overexpose bright areas of the image - stars - much more before I saturate the sensor). This was also a bigger and heavier camera and I needed to rework my rig to balance things out. I have been eager to test this out.

Recently I had that chance. Choosing Messier 63 - the Sunflower Galaxy as my target I took over 15 hours of exposure through Luminesce, Red, Green, Blue, and Hydrogen-Alpha filters over the nights of May 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th. I thought I had clear nights but it turns out that thin clouds passed through on EVERY night - enough cloud to mess up my exposures but not enough to shut things down. I inspected every single frame and I ended up throwing out 5 HOURS of data due to "Cloud Pollution". I got to tell you - that HURTS.

I have shot this target once before in early 2020. A link to that posting is HERE. The previous image is also shown for comparison purposes. I am pretty happy with the improvement.

About our Target…

I have captured M63 before and I wanted to see what difference I could make with a new camera and a bit more experience under my belt. I am very pleased with the result of my first effort with this camera. Good detail, excellent color.

Located 29.3 Million Light Years away, this is what Wikipedia has to say about M63:

Messier 63 or M63, also known as NGC 5055 or the seldom-used Sunflower Galaxy,[6] is a spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici with approximately 400 billion stars.[7] M63 was first discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, then later verified by his colleague Charles Messier on June 14, 1779.[6] The galaxy became listed as object 63 in the Messier Catalogue. 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.[8]

The shape or morphology of this galaxy has a classification of SAbc,[5] indicating a spiral form with no central bar feature (SA) and moderate to loosely wound arms (bc). There is a general lack of large-scale continuous spiral structure in visible light, so it is considered a flocculent galaxy. However, when observed in the near-infrared, a symmetric, two-arm structure is seen. Each arm wraps 150° around the galaxy and extends out to 13,000 light-years (4,000 parsecs) from the nucleus.[9]

M63 is a weakly active galaxy with a LINER nucleus – short for 'low-ionization nuclear emission-line region'. This displays as an unresolved source at the galactic nucleus that is cloaked in a diffuse emission. The latter is extended along a position angle of 110° relative to the north celestial pole, and both soft X-rays and hydrogen (H-alpha) emission can be observed coming from nearly the same direction.[10] The existence of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the nucleus is uncertain; if it does exist, then the mass is estimated as (8.5±1.9)×108 M☉,[11] or around 850 million times the mass of the Sun.

Annotated Version of the Image

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Annotated Version - Click to zoom in…

Location in the Sky

IUA/Sky & Telescope Constellation Chart for M63. A yellow arrow marks it’s location.

More Info:

Wikipedia Entry: M63

Hubble Space Telescope image: M63

Imaging Detail:

Lights

• Number of frames is after bad or questionable frames were culled. 

• 71 x 90 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II L Filter 

• 81 x 90 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, 0 gain, ZWO Gen II R Filter 

• 67 x 90 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter 

• 79 x 90 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II B Filter 

• 27 x 300 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, Astronomiks 6nm Ha Filter 

• Total of 9.7 hours

• Cal Frames

• 25 Darks at 300 seconds, bin 1x1, -15C, gain 0

• 50 Darks at 90 seconds, bin 1x1, -15C, gain 0

• 30 Dark Flats at Flat exposure times, bin 1x1, -15C, gain 0

• 30 R Flats

• 30 G Flats

• 30 B Flats

• 30 L Flats

• 30 Ha Flats

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Capture Hardware:

• Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO refractor

• Guide Scope: Televue 76mm Doublet

• Camera: ZWO AS2600mm-pro with ZWO 7x36 Filter wheel with ZWO  LRGB filter set, 

• and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set

• Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

• Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

• Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

• Mount: Ioptron CEM60

• Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera

Software:

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

Image Processing: Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret and much swearing…..

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Click below to se the Telescope Platform version used for this image