Jul 20
The Sunflower Galaxy, M63 // Samuel Warfel
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The Sunflower Galaxy, M63 // Samuel Warfel
The Sunflower Galaxy
We are familiar with the typical shape of spiral galaxies: luxurious spiral arms extending from an intense super massive black hole at the centre. Often, the spiral arms have a red-coloured spine, suggesting a curved path of star-formation. Sometimes the spiral arms are close, and sometimes further apart, but, the general shape is similar. However, there are hybrids, there are exceptions.
The Sunflower Galaxy has a super massive black hole at the centre. However, there are two distinct areas extending from it. In the area nearest the centre, the strong luminosity suggests an extended region of influence by the super massive black hole.
In the outer area, the spiral arms are so close that they are hard to distinguish. They do have the red-coloured spines, whose outlines reveal the familiar spiral shape. There are deep textures on the surface, suggesting strong gravitational turbulence that we don’t often see. This suggests to us the colours and textures of a Sunflower.
The Sunflower Galaxy is 30 million light years distance, and is about half the size of our galaxy.
This image is an aggregate of the best 53 photos from a total of 84, where each was a 3 minute exposure. I photographed the Sunflower Galaxy from my garden in Strasbourg France in early April 2025.
m63 (sunflower galaxy) | 8/3/24 | 3 min
“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still." ―Carl Sagan
ll Galaxies & Stars l Alex Hawkinson l 3/7 astrofalls
the Sunflower galaxy (M63)
This is the Sunflower Galaxy! 🌻🌻🌻
This galaxy is classified as a flocculent galaxy because even though it is a spiral galaxy, it doesn’t have those definitive spiral arms and looks a lot more fluffy! ☁☁☁
Taken by me (Michelle Park) using the Slooh Canary Two telescope on November 20th, 2020 at 5:41 UTC.
Sunflower Galaxy WIDE Field View (M63)