M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy: The Sunflower Galaxy is around 25 million light-years distant, in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is almost 100,000 light-years across -- the same size as our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is part of the M51 group, which also contains Messier Object 51 and a number of smaller galaxies. (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m063.html)

Messier: 63
NGC: 5055
Right Ascension: 13h 15.8m
Declination: 42° 02"
Apparent Magnitude: 8.6

Date: August 2008
Equipment: Meade 16" LX200 Schmidt Cassegrain
Exposure: L:R:G:B = 35:14:15:14 with one minute subframes
Scale: 1.01"/pixel

Links to images of this object on other sites:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080417.html
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/m63.html

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