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public  Florence, United States Florence, United States  ⓘ
Timezone: America/New_York
Sunrise: 6:16 
Transit: 13:15 
Sunset: 20:14
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In Evidence

New Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) Discovered in May 2025
Detailed information about the discovery of Comet C/2025 J1 (Borisov) and pointers to useful resources to track and observe it. Read more...

Other deep sky objects in Canes Venatici
All Constellations »  Canes Venatici »  Deep Sky Objects » 

Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici

Above the horizon.  Rise: 14:20 | Tran: 22:51 | Set: 7:19
Alt: 77.62°   Az: 312.08°   Direction: North-West

Messier 63 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Canes Venatici constellation. Messier 63 is situated north of the celestial equator and, as such, it is more easily visible from the northern hemisphere. Given its visual magnitude of 8.59, Messier 63 is visible with the help of a binocular with a 60-70mm aperture or a small telescope.

The image below is a photograph of Messier 63 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.3943x0.3943 degrees (23.66x23.66 arcmins).

Image of Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici star
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DSS2 image of Messier 63 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (11.83 arcmin) and minor (7.16 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

13h 16m 57s
+41° 53’ 44”
00h 49m 22s
14h 06m 19s

J2000

13h 15m 48s
+42° 01’ 45”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of Messier 63 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici.

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Finder chart for Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of Messier 63 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

9.34
8.59
6.57
5.83
5.61

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

The surface brightess reported below is an indication of the brightness per unit of angular area of Messier 63.

23.04 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports Messier 63 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of Messier 63 is a visual representation of it.
11.83 arcmin
7.16 arcmin
103°

Morphological Classification

Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici is classified as Spiral (SAbc) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici
Visualization of the morphological classification of Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici, Spiral (SAbc).
Credits for the background image: Antonio Ciccolella / M. De Leo / CC BY

Rise and Set Times

Location: Florence, United States
Latitude: 34° 11’ 43” N
Longitude: 79° 45’ 45” W
Timezone: America/New_York

Today's Messier 63 (Sunflower Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici rise, transit and set times from Florence, United States are the following (all times relative to the local timezone America/New_York):

Azimuth: 48.1°
Max altitude: 82.3°
Azimuth: 311.9°