M64 - Black Eye Galaxy
M64 - Black Eye Galaxy: The Black Eye galaxy in Coma Berenices has some exceptionally prominent dust lanes that give the galaxy its' name. Apparently, the outer bands of this spiral are orbiting in the opposite direction that the inner regions as a result of a collision with a smaller galaxy that has been almost completely absorbed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Eye_Galaxy
Messier: 64
NGC: 4826
Right Ascension: 12h 56m 44s
Declination: 21° 41'
Apparent Magnitude: 9.4
Date: April 2010
Equipment:
Telescope: Meade 16" Schmidt Cassegrain with f6.3 reducer
Camera: SBIG ST-10XE
Guiding: Meade 5" refractor/DSI Pro/PHD
Exposure: L: 11x3 minutes
BVR: 4x5 minutes each
Processing Notes: Data acquisition with CCDSoft. Reduced and aligned in CCDStack. Subs combined in Sigma Beta. Auto-white balance in AstroArt to combine the color channels. Adjusted curves and levels in Photoshop. Slight blur on the dim areas and sharpening on non-star bright areas. Some contrast adjustment on the dust lanes. Clone tool was used on the edges to fix the slightly rotated color channels.
Scale: 1.0"/pixel
Links to images of this object on other sites:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070802.html
Additional Comments: The color on this image was from "BVR" photometric filters (which were being used for another project) rather than the "standard" RGB photographic filters. Data taken by Chris Hardrick and Bill Fellman, processing by Charles Hakes. A more recent processing of this image can be found here: http://www.fortlewis.edu/observatory/image_detail.asp?ID=219
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