Black Eye Galaxy (M64 - Com) - Is it a Sleeping Beauty, or an Evil Eye ? (C8 EHD)
With Galaxy Season upon us, I’m trying my best to pick out some of these gem-stones in the night sky. Too many to chose from, so I picked M64 …
One night, 4 hours of data, but I’m not holding my breath to get more data in. The weather forecast is bleak for the next weeks, maybe with an off chance at a couple of clear hours, but I rather process this now instead of waiting for kingdom come …
With just 4 hours, the image isn’t all that smooth, but there is nice detail in the core of the galaxy. Stars are a bit 'off', not sure why as the individual subs all seemed reasonably ok (Although I have noticed I need to be careful on how I stretch them, after using StarXTerminator). I wasn’t too aggressive in the processing, but the galaxy has a shiner of a black eye … I rather see this as a sleeping beauty that I’ve gently awakened, so I’m not too unhappy about this result
The
Black Eye Galaxy (also called
Sleeping Beauty Galaxy or
Evil Eye Galaxy and designated
Messier 64,
M64, or
NGC 4826) is a relatively isolated
spiral galaxy 17 million
light-years away in the mildly northern
constellation of
Coma Berenices. A dark band of
absorbing dust partially in front of its bright nucleus gave rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye", "Evil Eye", or "Sleeping Beauty" galaxy.
There is an inner disk of molecular gas that is truncated at a radius of 2,300 ly. At present, the non-rotational motions of this disk do not significantly feed the core, but the disk does produce a vigorous rate of
star formation, with also approximately 100 billion stars inside the galaxy. The
interstellar medium of Messier 64 consists of two
counter-rotating disks that are approximately equal in mass. The inner disk contains the prominent
dust lanes of the galaxy. The stellar population of the galaxy exhibits no measurable counter-rotation.
M64
C8 EHD, UVIR, ASI2600MC, EQ6-R Pro
Photons: 84x 180s = 4h12
20230327
PixInsight
Happy to hear your thoughts …
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