M64 Black Eye Galaxy (Joe Niemeyer)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com) · Contains: Black Eye Galaxy · Evil Eye Galaxy · M 64 · NGC 4826

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M64 Black Eye Galaxy

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M64 Black Eye Galaxy

This is my image of the Black Eye Galaxy also known as the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy. Which name do you think better fits it? It is a spiral galaxy 17 million light-years away and is cataloged as M64. It lies to the south in the late Spring in an isolated and lonely part of space. Don't you feel sad for M64? Astronomers believe it got its black eye and misshapen appearance from a collision with another galaxy over a billion years ago. Inner parts of the galaxy rotate clockwise while outer portions rotate counter-clockwise. Star formation is very active in the sheer region between the inner and outer portions of the galaxy.

I used my new ZWO ASI2400MC Pro astrophotography camera that cools the sensor 35°C below ambient temperature to reduce noise. I also used a Baader Neodymium filter to block light pollution and moonglow from a nearly full moon. And this was my first time to use a focus aid using photometry measurements from the imaging sensor. These dim, fuzzy deep sky objects are otherwise very hard to focus. This image is a stack of forty 300-second exposures at 2350mm focal length, calibrated with 20 each dark, flat, and dark flat frames, post-processed with StarNet++ and Photoshop.

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4554393
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M64 Black Eye Galaxy

M64 Black Eye Galaxy

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M64 Black Eye Galaxy

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