Black Eye Galaxy

[Davide Simonetti]

The Black Eye Galaxy or Evil Eye Galaxy (M64) is a spiral galaxy appoximately 24 million light years away from Earth in the Coma Berenices constellation. It gets its name from the dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus. 

Imaged on 27th February 2015: 

36 x 15 second exposures at 12800 ISO

28 x 20 second exposures at 1600 ISO

36 x 15 second exposures at 3200 ISO

30 x dark frames

21 x flat frames

Processed in Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop

[Paul73]

Good effort. I'm not sure that I've seen a DSLR go at this one.

You've go the dust lane nicely.

Paul

[Davide Simonetti]

Thanks Paul. I was surprised to get this much detail with an AltAz mount. I was hunting around in Stellarium looking for something bright enough to image and found this galaxy. When I saw the first subs my optimism increased

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[Chris]

Good effort on an alt/az. I think there might be more data there even! The background looks black clipped. This is where the smooth curve of the histogram has been cut off on the left side during post processing. Not 100% sure this has happened hear but the jet black background is a sign. 

[Paul73]

m81 & m82 would be prime candidates for your setup. Have you tried them yet?

Paul

[Davide Simonetti]

m81 & m82 would be prime candidates for your setup. Have you tried them yet?

Paul

M81 and M82 are two of my favourite targets...I image them fairly regularly and the results are slowly getting better. I still can't quite resolve the spirals on M81 though (I just get the nucleus and a tiny bit more). I think I need a wedge so I can lengthen the exposures without getting trails on the stars.

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