14 April 2024 update: I published
here a new take of this area, showing the faint IFN surrounding M64.
The M64 is portrayed here in the middle of a wide empty sky-scape, populated by a huge quantity of background galaxies, as visible in the annotated revision.
The original wide field is visible in revision C.
Picture: a nameless asterism close to the upper left corner of the main image Revision C.M64 The Black Eye Galaxy or NGC 4826 is a relatively isolated spiral galaxy 17 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices, pretty close to North Galactic Pole. It was discovered by Edward Pigott in March 1779, and soon after independently by Johann Elert Bode and by Charles Messier. A dark band of absorbing dust partially in front of its bright nucleus gave rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye".
M64 is a type 2 Seyfert galaxy with an HII/LINER nucleus.
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. Possible formation scenarios include a merger with a gas-rich satellite galaxy in a retrograde orbit, or the continued accretion of gas clouds from the intergalactic medium. It has a diameter of 53800 light-years.
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