M63 was the first nebula to be discoved by Pierre Méchain. He found it on 14 June 1779 and Charles Messier included it in his catalogue on same day. It was the first galaxy to be recognised as spiral by Lord Rosse. It is in the constellation of Canis Venatici and is part of the M51-cluster despite being almost 5° away from M51. It is 25 million light years from us and is about 100,000 light years in diameter. There is a beautiful picture of this galaxy in the APOD for 17 April 2008 and another on 11 September 2010.
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Date and Time: 18th May 2010 00:11 to 00:20 UT Camera: Starlight Xpress MX716 Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer and Orion Skyglow filter Capture: Star_mx7. Exposure 120 sec, 5 frames Processing: Star_mx7. Black level, enhancement factor 25, black level, on each frame. Irfanview. Conversion to png format. RegiStax5. 5 frames stacked, gamma Focus Magic 3,100. 
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When I took the above picture I forgot that the Orion Skyglow filter does not block IR light. This picture was taken with a simple IR-block filter. The improved deffinition is evident. Date and Time: 19th April 2013 23:09 to 23:19 UT Camera: Starlight Xpress MX716 Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer and IR-block filter Capture: Star_mx7. Exposure 60 sec, 10 frames Processing: Star_mx7. Black level, enhancement factor 25, black level, on each frame. Irfanview. Conversion to png format. RegiStax5. 10 frames stacked, dark-frame subtraction, Gaussian wavelets Scheme 1, gamma 1.3 |
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