Messier (M) 63, the Sunflower Galaxy in Canes Venatici in the northern spring sky. This is a fine example of a "flocculent" spiral galaxy with tightly wound and patchy spiral arms. Several small and more distant 14th and 15th magnitude UGC and PGC galaxies are also in the field. This is a stack of 9 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with the Canon EOS Ra through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT apo refractor at f/6 with the 6x7 field flattener. One image in the 10-frame sequence had misguiding for some odd reason and was not included in the stack. Taken from home April 30, 2021. Starizona's Galaxy Enhance action applied to M63.
A telephoto lens image of the spiral galaxy Messier 63 in Canes Venatici. This is shot to simulate the field of view of binoculars for illustration purposes. M94 is at far right. This is a stack of 8 x 1-minute exposures with the 200mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 800, tracked but unguided on the Mach 1 mount, on April 28, 2019.
The bright galaxy Messier (M) 64 in Coma Berenices, aka the Black Eye Galaxy from its prominent dark dust lane around the nucleus. This is a stack of 16 x 6-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with the Canon EOS Ra through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDF refractor at f/6 with the 6x7 field flattener. Slight haze this night, April 12, 2021, added the star glows. The mount, the AP Mach 1, was autoguided with the MGEN3 autoguider applying a 5-pixel dithering shift between each frame. Alignment and stacking (with Median blend) of exported TIFFs was with Affinity Photo's Astrophotography Stack mode, as Photoshop did fail to accurately align this set, unusual for Photoshop. Development of raws was with Camera Raw, and editing was with Photoshop.
