Discovered 1779 by Pierre Méchain.

M63 was the very first discovery of a Deep Sky object by Messier's friend, Pierre Méchain.

The Sunflower galaxy, M63, is one of the early recognized spiral galaxies.  It has been classified as a Hubble type Sb or Sc, displaying a patchy spiral pattern which can be traced well to the periphery of its only 6 arc seconds small smooth-textured central region.  Although 6 degrees south of M51, it is considered part of a physical group consisting M51 and several smaller galaxies.  M63 lies in the constellation Canes Venatici and is approximately 37 million light years from our Milky Way galaxy.

¹http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m063.html