I have captured M64 several times, the latest being
this image taken with my EdgeHd C11 2800mm focal length scope just over a year ago. I had heard that IFN exists in the M64 vicinity, and have seen it in the Aladin sky atlas program, but I have never been able to capture it using my slower setups. My RASA setup finally allowed me to capture it in this image.
M64 is a Seyfert spiral galaxy located only 14 million light years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices at a declination of +22 degrees. It is a magnitude 8.5 galaxy which spans 11 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 50,000 light years. It appears to us about 30 degrees from edge-on and is the 27th brightest galaxy in the sky.
This galaxy, nicknamed the Black Eye Galaxy, has an impressive meandering wide dust lane which appears strongly on the upper left (assumed near side) of the core. The dust lane looks like it is also present but obscured by stars on the lower right side. The outer disk is diffuse, although numerous concentric rings can subtly be seen within the disk.
In the image, IFN is seen in a long east-west path below M64. I have not been able to find any details on this IFN, including the distance. The image shows the galaxy and IFN to be similar in brightness. In reality, the galaxy is much brighter – I masked the galaxy in my processing so that its details would not be blown out in the final highly stretched image.
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