The famous Sunflower Galaxy, Messier 63 (or NGC 5055), is a spiral galaxy located about 29 millions light-years away in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici.
The shape or morphology of this galaxy has a classification of SAbc, indicating a spiral form with no central bar (SA) and moderate to loosely wound arms (bc).
As there is a general lack of large-scale continuous spiral structure in visible light, it is considered a flocculent galaxy. However, when observed in the near infrared, a symmetric two-arm structure is seen with each arm wrapping 150° around the galaxy and extending out to 13,000 light-years from the nucleus.
The halo feature around M63 is consistent with a giant stellar stream that originated from the accretion of a dwarf satellite sometime within the last 5 billion years.
There are quite a lot of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the area and many big HII regions inside M63.
Exposure : 21h from april,15 to may, 6 in Amiens (France, Bortle 7) avec :
Newton 250mm f/3.8 on Ioptron CEM70 mount
Camera ZWO ASI2600mm + filters Antlia LRGBHa
Processing Pixinsight & Photoshop
L : 390 x 120s
Ha : 42 x 300s
RBG : 45 / 44 / 45 x 120s