Messier 63
| Galaxy Messier 63 |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Image taken with a 24-inch telescope | |
| AladinLite | |
| Constellation | Hunting dogs |
|
Position equinox : J2000.0 , epoch : J2000.0 |
|
| Right ascension | 13 h 15 m 49.3 s |
| declination | + 42 ° 01 ′ 45 ″ |
| Appearance | |
| Morphological type | SA (rs) bc / HII / LINER |
| Brightness (visual) | 8.5 likes |
| Brightness (B-band) | 9.3 mag |
| Angular expansion | 12.6 ′ × 7.2 ′ |
| Position angle | 105 ° |
| Surface brightness | 13.2 mag / arcmin² |
| Physical data | |
| Affiliation | M51 group, LGG 347 |
| Redshift | +0.001614 ± 0.000003 |
| Radial velocity | +484 ± 1 km / s |
|
Stroke distance v rad / H 0 |
(25 ± 2) x 10 6 ly (7.54 ± 0.53) Mpc |
| history | |
| discovery | Pierre Méchain |
| Discovery date | June 14, 1779 |
| Catalog names | |
| M 63 • NGC 5055 • UGC 8334 • PGC 46153 • CGCG 217-23 • MCG + 7-27-54 • IRAS 13135 + 4217 • GC 3474 • h 1570 | |
Messier 63 (also known as NGC 5055 ) is a spiral galaxy with dimensions 12.6 '× 7.2' and an apparent magnitude of 8.5 mag in the constellation Hounds . The object, also known as the sunflower galaxy , is about 25 million (depending on the source, 30 or 37 million) light years away from the solar system and has a diameter of 50,000 (65,000) light years. Unusual and eponymous are the many nodular condensations in their spiral arms , which are particularly clearly visible in the Spitzer image ; these are star formation areas and glowing gas clouds.
In very long-exposure images, a star stream is visible in the form of an arc reaching out for 14 arc minutes and only 1.6 arc minutes wide. A detailed study by Taylor S. Chonis et al. a. comes to the conclusion that a dwarf galaxy with around 100 million solar masses has been swallowed up here. The tidal interaction when tearing apart also produced the wide stream of stars that is still visible today.
The very bright central region of M 63, which extends over around 1000 light years, is also interesting. It surrounds an active core and exceeds its ambient brightness by six times, in H-alpha light even by 25 times. The rotational speeds measured here suggest a central black hole with a mass of almost one billion solar masses.
The object was discovered by Pierre Méchain on June 14, 1779 .
High-resolution image of the center from the Hubble Space Telescope
Web links
- M63 - Photo by Sebastian Hess and Mario Weigand
- M63 at SEDS
- astronews.com: Picture of the day September 8, 2015
- M 63, taken with a semi-professional amateur telescope
- Spektrum.de : Amateur recordings [1] [2]
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d NASA / IPAC EXTRAGALACTIC DATABASE
- ↑ a b c d e SEDS : NGC 5055
- ↑ Stars and Space . July 2012, p. 94.
- ↑ Stars and Space. April 2011, p. 66.
- ↑ Stars and Space. April 2013, p. 77.
- ↑ Seligman
