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M 64 The Black Eye Galaxy |
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| About this picture: |
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Messier 64 (M64, NGC 4826) is the famous Black Eye galaxy, sometimes also called the "Sleeping Beauty galaxy." The conspicuous dark structure is a prominent dust feature obscuring the stars behind.As becomes evident in color photos, the main spiral pattern is consisted of an intermediate aged stellar population. Stellar formation has first evolved outside following the density gradient, forming stars as long as there was sufficient interstellar matter available, and then dying out slowly. As the matter was flowing back from the evolved stars, by stellar wind, supernovae, and planetary nebula activity, more and more interstellar matter could accumulate again, so that finally there was enough matter to start the formation of new young stars again. This second wave of star formation has apparently reached now the region where the dark dust lane appears. A new press release from the Space Telescope Science Institute gives the distance of M64 as 19 million light years, a value we adopt here for now. Scope: 12" LX200 OTA @ f6.3 Mount: MI250 Camera: SBIG ST200XM,CFW10 Astrodon Gen II filters Guiding: SSautoguider with Maxim Dl. LLRGB image, L= 18X10 min. RGB= 16X5 min. Bin 2X. Total exposure time = 7 hrs Images acquired with Maximum Dl, combined with CCDStack, final processing with PS CS2 Images were taken at the fully automated Burkes Observatory on 3/21 using ACP. |