M64 from the University of Alabama
The "Black Eye" or "Sleeping Beauty" galaxy M64 was recently shown to have two counterrotating systems of stars and gas in its disk. The peculiar dust lane on one side of the nucleus (also a site of star formation, as shown by the blue knots imbedded in it) may be caused by material from a former companion which has been accreted but has yet to settle into the mean orbital plane of the disk.
This image is a three-color composite from BVR CCD frames taken with an RCA CCD at the 1.1-meter Hall telescope of Lowell Observatory, by Bill Keel and Anatoly Zasov.
Credit: Bill Keel, University of Alabama.
M64, the Blackeye Galaxy, as photographed with the 4-meter Mayall
telescope of Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1975.
Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF
This picture of M64 is a color composite of CCD images from the 0.9-meter
telescope of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona, taken in
January 1997. Image size is 14.5 arc minutes. The conspicuous dust lane is
evident.
Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF
Image of M64 from an anonymous source.
M64 as photographed with the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope of the Isaac Newton
Group of Telescopes, La Palma, JAG CCD Camera and Tek detector, in 1995 by
Nik Szymanek. This is a composite of images through B, V and R filters.
Credit: ING Archive and Nik Szymanek.
John Gleason took this image of M64 when participating in the
Advanced Observer Program of
the
Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) Visitor Center. It was obtained with
the AOP's Meade 16-inch LX200 telescope operating at f/6.3 and SBIG ST8E CCD
camera with color filter wheel, and processed by Adam Block. It is a LRGB
composite of exposures Luminance (L): 30 min, Red (R): 7 min, Green (G): 7 min,
and Blue (B): 14 min.
Credit: John Gleason/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF
Last Modification: 5 September 2003