M052

M52 is a nice rich open cluster in Cassiopeia. One every imager usually does early in their career. Seems I waited until late 2010 to take it. Not sure why it took me so long to get to it. Fortunately, it was a better night so the stars sparkle. I've found star clusters don't image well with my system on an average night though that's usually when I take them.

The distance to M52 is rather uncertain. It is hiding behind a lot of obscuring dust which makes determining its distance rather uncertain. I found estimates ranging from 3000 to 7000 light-years. Most values though were in the 5000 light-year range though WEBDA says 4600. WEBDA puts its age at 58 million years though other sources say 35 million.

I found this dust rather robbed the blue from the stars in my image. I don't think I fully compensated. The background of orange stars is far greater than normal. I couldn't find a G2V star behind this dust to calibrate on. I probably should have tried more modern techniques like eXcalibrator but hadn't explored that in 2010. Normally I've been satisfied with G2v balancing as used here but it doesn't compensate for reddening which WEBDA says was .65 magnitudes hence the slight loss of blue.

While Messier didn't discover all the objects in his list -- other astronomers of the day would tell him about their finds which he'd add to the list -- this is one of his first discoveries. He found it when a comet he was following went near it on Sept. 7, 1774. William Herschel had this to say about the cluster: "This is a cluster of pretty condensed stars of different sizes. It is situated in a very rich part of the heavens and can hardly be called insulated, it may only be a very condensed part of the Milky Way which is here much divided and scattered. It is however so far drawn together with some accumulation that it may be called a cluster of the third order.”

Some sources say the brightest star, rather yellow-orange in my image right of center, is not a member of the cluster.

SEDS info: http://messier.seds.org/m/m052.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x5' RGB=2x5'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M052

M053

M53 is a globular star cluster in Coma Berenices hiding among all the area's galaxies. It is a rather unusual globular in that it is rather old at over 12 billion years. Since most, if not all, of a globular cluster's stars formed when it did only yellow to red stars, should remain. Its blue stars having died billions of years ago. Yet it is full of blue stars of a type known as blue stragglers. In most globulars, some of these exist, usually near the core where star density is high. It is thought due to the extremely high star density some collide, merge and become massive hot blue stars -- blue stragglers. But in the case of M53, these stars can be found throughout the globular rather than concentrated in the core. One possible explanation is that these blue stragglers are due to the cluster having a high density of double stars in which the more massive star's gravity pulls material from the companion growing to the mass needed for a blue star. Also, it is chock full of red giant's. Both are quite obvious in my image with the yellow, orange and red giants scattered about same as the fainter but more numerous blue stragglers. Again the number of these giant stars is higher than expected. Probably due to blue stragglers running out of fuel and expanding into red giants. This would explain their similar distribution. Though this is my idea, I found little on this.

The cluster is now thought to lie about 58 to 60 thousand light-years from both the sun and the Milky Way's core. When I took this image back in 2008 most sources put it at about 48,000 light-years so the change caught me by surprise when I went to write this up in 2017. It was discovered on February 3, 1775 by Johann Bode. Messier found it himself 2 years later on February 26, 1777 putting it in his catalog. Neither saw its stars. Both said it was round, Bode called it vivid and Messier said it was conspicuous. Not surprising as it is one of the brighter globular star clusters in the sky. I've even seen it naked eye on a really good night. William Herschel first resolved its stars describing it as similar to M10 which I can't see naked eye.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of its central region can be seen at: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120409.html

For SEDS info see: http://messier.seds.org/m/m053.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=12x5' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M053

M056

M56 is a globular star cluster in Lyra not far from the far more famous Ring Nebula, M57. I took only luminance data back on January 8, 2007, Months later I finally took color data but found I couldn't match the two. In the meantime, I'd completely changed the optical configuration of my scope. This changed various distortions found in all optical systems. I greatly reduced them but now there was no way to match the color data to the luminosity image with the crappy software I had at the time. Even adjusting for scale (original was 1.03" per pixel while the color was 1.01" per pixel, and rotation the stars still wouldn't line up in many parts of the image. I resigned myself to redoing it from the beginning as in the year after color data was taken I'd further reduced distortions in the system meaning new luminosity data wouldn't match the year older color data. Then a few months ago I splurged and bought a new program that can match "unmatchable" frames like these, RegiStar -- now there are several that do this but it was the only one at back in 2007. I'd tried demos of several even more expensive programs that claimed to do this but wouldn't match something as different as in this M56 series so had about given up but tried RegiStar, a very old program, really designed for making mosaics where the overlap often has differing distortions. It did the job perfectly. So now I have a color version 2 years in the making. Problem is, at the time, I knew just enough processing to be dangerous and severely damaged the image. The original data is buried in the basement so until I can dig out the old hard drive the data is on this will have to do.

Most sources put it at just under 33,000 light-years from us and about 31,000 to 32,000 light-years from the galaxy's core. The odd thing is it is orbiting our galaxy backwards. This could mean it is a relic of a galaxy ours ate sometime in the past. While globular clusters are low in metals it is unusually low, another indication it is a latecomer to our galaxy. Also while most globular clusters in our galaxy are about 10 billion years old it is thought to be some 13 billion years old, likely older than our galaxy.

The cluster was one of Messier's discoveries. He found it on January 19, 1779. He described it as a "nebula without stars". Not surprising as it takes a really good 6" telescope to start to show its stars, far larger than anything Messier had available.

SEDS info: http://messier.seds.org/m/m056.html

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M056

M057

M57 or Ring Nebula: I remember one of the summer nights about 7 months after we opened Hyde Memorial Observatory, a public observatory where I was a supervisor for its first 27 years, we were featuring this nebula. Some fellow had been bitching to me that he couldn't understand why we didn't allow smoking saying we were as bad as his wife about the subject. Then he looked in the C-14 at this nebula. He yells for his wife to come and take a look. She does and says "So what?" He says "See, God smokes, he blows smoke rings!" They were still arguing as they left. Actually, it does resemble a ring of smoke in a telescope. We still don't allow smoking even on the observing deck.

The nebula is about 2300 light years from us at between the bottom two stars of the Lyra parallelogram. A planetary nebula is formed from the outer layers of a dead star. Its final act is to blow these off leaving only the super hot core (where fusion used to go on in the star). This is usually in the center and very blue since it is blue hot. While the core no longer generates energy it is so massive and so small that it takes billions of years for it to cool. It takes only a few tens of thousands of years for the shell of gas forming the planetary nebula to expand and fade from view. The core that's left behind is commonly known as a white dwarf. Such a fate awaits our sun in a bit over 5 billion years from now. You can read more about this at: http://messier.seds.org/m/m057.html

There are two ways this object is normally imaged. One is in a short exposure RGB or LRGB image that picks up only the bright ring and maybe a hint of the material inside the ring. The other is to use narrow band filters to pick up the fainter outer shell. This is normally done in H-alpha light and OIII light. I chose to do neither approach. I didn't like the short exposure route and I don't have an OIII filter as yet so neither seemed to be what I wanted to do. I've been waiting for seeing good enough to use 0.5" per pixel resolution. To do that with narrow filters would require maybe 10 hours of exposure time. In three years we've just not had the needed seeing for even 1 hour until a few days ago. I was able to grab one hour of luminosity data before the seeing deteriorated too much. I tried several more nights but seeing just didn't cooperate so I went with the one hour I did get. On those nights of lesser seeing, I took color data, 30 minutes per color, at 1" resolution. The resulting image shows the true color of the outer shell rather than the red color normally seen in narrowband H-alpha dominated images. The OIII light in the blue-green part of the spectrum overcomes the red of H-alpha to give it a rather grey or colorless tone though some pockets of H-alpha can be seen where it dominates.

Also of interest is the spiral galaxy IC 1296. It is very difficult in any scope smaller than 12" or so. I can just barely see in in the 14" here so few notice it when looking at the ring. Redshift distance is a bit over 200 million light years so it a rather large two arm spiral. Only very deep images capture the large disk that the arms are embedded in. The many knots of newly formed stars that outline parts of the outer rim of this disk surprised me. I'd not noticed them before in any image I'd seen. Though usually deep images are taken using narrowband filters that filter out the light of these star clouds. This galaxy turns out to be extremely interesting in its own right and would likely be far better known and studied if it weren't for its much more dramatic "neighbor". A quick search of the literature turned up nothing on this guy or its odd star clouds. I need much more exposure time at this seeing to get more detail out of this galaxy.

I cropped this image, the full image is 4 times this size but only contains small fuzzy galaxies same as seen in this cropped image. In fact, I never even processed that part of the data.

A Hubble image (short exposure type) can be seen at:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040704.html

How you stretch the more than 4,000 true intensity levels (yes there are actually over 65,000 but they are due to read noise, not real data) in the original image to fit the 256 levels a monitor supports can change the look of an object greatly. It all depends on what detail you wish to show. Thus it is interesting to compare my image to that taken on Kitt Peak (home of far better seeing than I'll ever have here in northern Minnesota) with a 20" telescope (lower image). In his processing, he processed the nebula normally for a short exposure look (upper version). Then he added exposure time and processed it for the faint detail (not shown). It would have been very similar to my image, with the bright parts of the nebula greatly reduced so the fainter outer halo showed. Then, since the short exposure version was done to show the nebula very bright, the two were combined such that the brightest pixel from each image was used to make the final image. Since the nebula was bright in the long exposure image it came though and since the outer parts were only seen in the long exposure version as well as the galaxies they too were in the final image. I wanted to show the detail in the ring normally not seen in the "standard" processing of his top image so didn't go that route. It does demonstrate how much control the processor has over how the final image looks and what detail you see and don't see.
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/obs/m57.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x20' RGB=3x10'x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M057

M058

M58 is a barred spiral in Virgo. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)b;LINER Sy1.9 so it has an active nucleus that is still chowing down on something. However, its weak blue arm color would indicate anemic star formation. Could this be due to the active black hole at its core? Some studies show a quasar level black hole can stifle star formation. This one isn't that active but the galaxy seems to have the dust and gas needed for star formation that isn't happening at a pace many would suspect it should. While it is one of the brighter M objects in the Virgo Cluster Messier's comment is rather odd. When he found it on April 15, 1779 he described it as very faint, so faint it vanished at the slightest illumination of his micrometer wires. John Herschel, Dreyer and others saw it a very bright, especially towards the middle. I had to hold back its core region when processing this one so I have to wonder if Messier was observing on a rather poor night for transparency.

For more on this see http://messier.seds.org/m/m058.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M058

M059

M59 somehow escaped my early imaging efforts when I first went digital. Probably because it seemed a very ordinary, featureless elliptical galaxy. Which it basically is in my image. When I noticed this omission and planned on adding it to the to-do list I saw two other galaxies to the north and a bit west that did look interesting. Since all could be fit into an image that's what I put on the list. Finally, in May, the field was taken. Unfortunately, when I went to process it I found a disaster. The blue frames, taken first were fine, the luminance taken next started out fine but by the third were very bright as if a full moon was nearby. The fourth was so bright even the background was above 40K ADU and worthless. Next came green which was also strong at over 20K background. Red's two images were better at 10K for the first and 3K for the second. Normal would be 600 on a bad night. What the heck. Then I went back and looked at visual posts from that night and there was a great aurora seen. I slept through it and my M59 was mostly destroyed. I decided to try and salvage it as otherwise it would be next year to try again. I only had 2 good luminance frames and one bad one that helped a tad to include as long as I masked out the saturated portions. I used mostly the best red. Green frames were mostly used to create a pseudo green layer. Fortunately, color noise is well tolerated by the eye-brain if you don't look too closely. With limited luminance, I tried adding the blue to make a pseudo luminance but with M59 being lacking in blue this didn't work very well and I went back to just using the 2 and part of the third luminance frames even though the background was very high and sky noise very great. I had to do a lot of background processing I'd normally never do to make a presentable image. Most of the background is fake having masked out the stars and galaxies to allow them to come through. This cost a lot of faint detail.

Now with that disclaimer out of the way on with the normal text.

M59 turns out to be a rather odd elliptical, or maybe not so odd since most are thought to be the result of many mergers. It has both a flat disk like a spiral buried so deep in the E5 body it is seen only in radio telescopes and rotates retrograde to the general rotation of the rest of the galaxy. Strong evidence that it merged with something rather large that still retains some of its spiral nature. Seen only in radio it isn't seen in visual though the ends of the galaxy are a bit more rounded than ellipticals without such counter-rotating disks. At least that's what I read. I didn't notice it. While redshift says it is 37 million light-years distant non-redshift measurements say 50 which is more reasonable for being a Virgo Cluster galaxy. Size is hard to determine due to my extremely high background. Using the best luminance FITS frame it almost runs off the bottom of the image. I suspect it really does run off but with my limited data, I can go with only what I can measure. That results in a size of 87,000 light-years rather small compared to some other ellipticals in the cluster such as nearby M84, 86 and 87. Most sources say it is smaller than these giants so maybe I'm seeing it all. Most sources say its long dimension is 5.4' while I was measuring 6'. So I may be overstating its size but really think that unlikely. Dang aurora anyway.

While listed in Messier's catalog, like many of "his" galaxies it was discovered by someone else. It was discovered by Johann Koehler on April 11, 1779. He also found M60 the same night. Messier found M59 4 days later. One night later (and before Messier) Barnabus Oriani in Italy also found M59. This likely was a confirmation of Koehler's discovery rather than an independent one. Quite a logjam of discovery.

More interesting are the two NGC galaxies at the top of the image. NGC 4606 is a strange galaxy. While NED classifies it as SB(s)a:; as does Seligman (NGC project says simply S...) I really can't see much of a bar nor spiral structure of any sort. It seems to be a mostly structureless blue disk galaxy with plumes. I suspect it is the result of a merger and may be transitioning to an elliptical though this is pure speculation on my part. I found nothing much other than comments about its lack of spiral structure. One note reads: "NGC 4606 This galaxy shows little traces of spiral arms and has an intermediate bulge. NGC 4606 appears between S0/a and Sa. However, Gavazzi et al. (2000) fit a bulge to disk ratio of 1/20, suggesting a later type than Sa." It is both a Seyfert and LINER galaxy also indications of strong interaction in its recent past. There's a bright star cloud near the core. Could this be the remains of what it ate? I didn't find anything on it to help with this.

Redshift puts it some 90 million light-years distant which puts it outside the Virgo Cluster. Non-redshift measurements say 58 million light-years. I suspect that is closer to the correct distance. The Virgo cluster is famous for high velocity galaxies, some even have blue shifts that greatly distort distance estimates. This is likely one. Using the closer measurement I get a size of 65,000 light-years including plumes. Again, I suspect the full size has been lost to that aurora.

It was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. I expected to find he discovered NGC 4607 beside it the same night but he didn't see it apparently. That had to wait 70 years for R. J. Mitchell using Lord Rosse's 72" telescope to find it on April 24, 1854.

NGC 4607 is a rather normal looking edge on spiral with a very crooked dust lane. Not at all the neat straight dust lane of a classic edge on spiral like say NGC 861. I rather expected it to make the Flat Galaxy Catalog as it has no sign of a central bulge but apparently, its width to length dimensions were just under the cutoff. It did make the lesser requirements of the 2 micron flat galaxy catalog however as 2MFGC 09982. It too has a very different redshift from non-redshift measurement. In this case, it is coming toward us at high speed thus measures at only 12 million light-years while non-redshift measurements give a much more reasonable 63 million light-years. Using the further distance I get a size of 68,000 light-years. Note I'm using the best luminance subframe as it shows the extent better than my fake background version. Classifying edge on galaxies seems a bit of a guess to me but NED and Seligman say SBb? while the NGC Project leaves off the question mark. How they tell it is a barred spiral I don't know. Maybe something to do with spectroscopic or radio details. I need educating on this subject.

There are three IC galaxies in the image. IC 809/3672 is by far the brightest. It is listed as a dwarf E1,N (Seligman says E0??) elliptical with a nucleus (that's the N) It too has two very different distance estimates. The non-redshift one of 51 million light-years the most likely one. Using that I get a size of 13,000 light-years. It was discovered by Lewis Swift on May 6, 1888. Later it was seen by Arnold Schwassmann on Sep 8, 1900. Apparently, Dreyer didn't realize they were the same galaxy and gave this later "discover" the 3672 entry. A note at NED says there is a very red globular cluster 2" from the nucleus. I don't find it on my image nor the Sloan image. Note the asteroid I picked up traveling in front of its upper left corner.

More interesting looking is IC 3670, a wide open 2 arm spiral I wish was much closer than its 350 million light-year distance. I measure its size at about 76,000 light-years. Pretty typical for this type of spiral galaxy. I'm puzzled by Seligman's entry for this. He shows it as E2?? rather than the spiral it so obviously is. NED is unusually silent. All I can think of is on the red POSS 1 plate the arms are very hard to detect. At first glance (maybe second even) it does look like an elliptical galaxy. But the arms show on the blue plate for both surveys. Assuming he didn't mix information from another galaxy (position is correct) it was discovered by Royal Frost on May 19, 1904. I don't think I've covered him before. While an American astronomer who did work for a short while under Pickering at Harvard he did most of his work at Arequipa Observatory in Peru. He is credited with 454 IC objects and one asteroid.

Another of Frost's discoveries is IC 3684, a dS0(8) (Seligman says S0/a??) galaxy on the far left of my image. He discovered it 9 days before the fainter IC 3670 on May 10, 1904. I only have a redshift distance for it of 68 million light-years. That makes it about 20,000 light-years in size. A bit large for a dwarf or it is closer. I suspect the latter.

The annotated image has two asteroids, one easy to see against the galaxy and the second, listed only 0.4 magnitudes fainter that barely registers. This is mostly due to my processing. Seen against the galaxy the two combine to be bright enough to get through but the other one suffered from my background substitution.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x10' RGB 2x10' (see text), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M059

M060

Arp 116 belongs in Arp's class for elliptical and elliptical-like galaxies close to and perturbing spirals. In this case, it is M 60 that is the elliptical and NGC 4647 that is the spiral. It is slightly sloshed with the core off center toward M60 as if pulled there by its gravity. Is that really the case? Redshift puts NGC 4647 at about 80 million light-years and M 60 at 66. But not redshift measurements have a median value of 55 million light-years for both. These are part of the Virgo cluster which is well known to for galaxies having a wide difference in redshift due to the strong gravity well created by so many galaxies in a small area. Redshift is not considered very reliable both because the cluster is rather close (averaging about 60 million light-years) and due to the wide variance of their widely varying speeds unrelated to distance. One study shows that the spiral must be behind M60 since none of its absorption features can be seen against M 60 as would be expected if it were in front. Since M60 has virtually no such features their lack against the spiral is expected even if it is in front of the spiral. How far they are apart is still unknown. With their difference in redshift, any passage by each other would be brief hardly giving time for any interaction to show. While it might distort a spiral arm slightly I doubt it could be the cause of the sloshing of NGC 4647's core. But this is only my surmise. It could be that since the side toward M 60 is bright due to being seen through M60 the fainter parts of NGC 4647 are hidden and it really isn't sloshed at all.

Measuring the size of an elliptical galaxy like M 60 is difficult as the edges just fade away meaning the longer the exposure the larger the size will be. I measure it somewhat larger than NED's value and get a size of about 145,000 light-years assuming a distance of 55 million light-years. While #60 in Messier's list it was first discovered by Johann Koehler on April 11, 1779. The next day Barnaba Oriani saw it. Messier saw and recorded it on April 15, 4 days after Koehler saw it. It could be so many saw it about the same time as a comet was known to be in the area at the time.

I measure NGC 4647 at a bit under 40 million light-years. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. It is in the Hershel 2 400 observing list.

There are no other major galaxies in the frame. Most of the galaxies lie far beyond the Virgo Cluster or are very small dwarf galaxies. Telling them apart visually is often difficult so I did prepare an annotated image showing red-shift distances. I'm writing this years after taking this image and I have no idea why Arp 116 is so low in my frame. If centered NGC 4637 an S0- galaxy would be visible. Instead only its very northern part ekes into the lower right corner. It was discovered by R. J. Mitchell on March 1, 1854. Also, do to my leaving no notes about taking this one I have no idea why I used only one 10 minute frame for each color.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp116.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M060

M061

M61 is another galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. Distance estimates vary from a bit under 50 million to a bit over 60 million light-years. It is one of the more southern members of the group so actually is in Virgo, many are in Coma Berenices. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)bc;HII Sy2 though some sources don't agree with the Seyfert 2 classification saying it is a weak AGN instead. This galaxy has been a hotbed of supernovas with 7 seen since 1926 and 6 of those since 1961. Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki discovered the last two in 2008 and 2014. This image was taken on January 5, 2009. Itagaki discovered SN 2008in on December 26 so it was still bright when I took this image. It reached magnitude 14.3. When I took it I measured it at 14.9 in my red filter and 14.5 in the blue filter. Unfortunately, the night was poor so details in the galaxy are lost to poor seeing and poor transparency. This galaxy has had at least 7 supernova since 1926; SN 1926A, SN 1961I, SN 1964F, SN 1999gn, SN 2006ov, SN 2008in and SN 2014dt. It would seem this is a galaxy for SN hunters to check often.

The galaxy to the upper right of M61 is NGC 4292. Above it is much smaller NGC 4292A. The problem comes with the galaxy to the upper left of M61. The Sky shows two galaxies here, NGC 4303A and NGC 4301 with two different positions and PGC numbers as well as other designations. NED merges both into one galaxy as there is only one there. But the issue gets even more complicated. For a century most said it was an entirely different galaxy. The problem was Lord Rosse's description with could be read two different ways saying it was either NE of M61 or northeast of NGC 4292. That puts it out of my frame at the top, PGC 39951. Some sources still insist it is NGC 4301 as Dryer claimed. Most today say NGC 4301 is northeast of M61 however. You can read more about this at the NGC Project page for NGC 4301. Adding another layer of confusion to Lord Rosse's comments is that he didn't discover it, Bindon Stoney did on April 21, 1851. I can't even verify the good lord ever even looked at it but may be just relaying Stoney's description. NED classifies this face on spiral as SAB(s)cd HII.

M61 was discovered by Barnaba Oriani on May 5, 1779. It appears Messier made an independent discovery 6 days later on May 11, 1779. William Herschel then recorded it on April 17, 1786. That got it listed in the first Herschel 400 observing program even though it was already in the Messier Program as well. I dutifully reobserved it for the H400 program on April 20, 1985 with my usual 10" f/5 Cave on a typical humid night for that spring using only 50x due to very poor transparency. My comments read: "Large, bright galaxy with a large halo around a starlike nucleus. Little brightening seen until the nucleus is reached. Obviously, it is a face-on spiral galaxy. -- Another Messier duplicate."

NGC 4292 was discovered by John Herschel on April 7, 1828 and is classified by NED as (R)SB(r)0^0^. NGC 4292A is also known as PGC 213977 and appears to be a face on spiral. Some classify it as Sab? NED doesn't show a classification, however. I find it interesting that all four of these galaxies are seen rather face on. Just coincidence or is something going on here? I have no idea but will go with coincidence for now.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' STL=11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M061

M063

M63 is a rather famous galaxy in Coma Berenices often called the Sunflower Galaxy. It is thought to be about 35 to 37 million light-years distant. It was found by Pierre Méchain on June 14, 1779 and immediately reported to Charlies Messier who recorded it in his catalog the very same day. It is one of the first spiral galaxies to be seen as a spiral. Deep photos show star streams especially to the north as faintly seen in this image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1608/M63LRGBVermetteR.jpg

An HST image of the core flocculent region can be seen here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1611/M63_Hubble_1098.jpg

What happened to the galaxy that created these. Some sources say it is UGCA 342 which is the squiggle seen below a bright star right of the galaxy in the above photo. But this is apparently incorrect. It appears no one can answer this question. You can read more about it at http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/142/5/166

The night I took this image back in April 2007 was very poor and my image fails to pick up much of the galaxies outer regions. I need to retake it with a lot more time. For now, this will have to do.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M063

M064

M64 is commonly known as the "Black Eye Galaxy" due to the dense dark lane on the north side of its nucleus. I've also seen it called the "Evil Eye Galaxy". I like better. The dark region may be due to it having eaten another galaxy about a billion years ago. The galaxy appears to have stars rotating backwards likely members of the now devoured galaxy. This is covered at the Hubble Heritage site:
Caption; http://heritage.stsci.edu/2004/04/caption.html
Image: http://heritage.stsci.edu/2004/04/big.html

It is located in Coma Berenices about 17 million light-years from us. Though other sources put it further at say 24 million light-years. NED classifies it as (R)SA(rs)ab; HII Sy2.

The galaxy was first seen by Edward Pigott on March 23, 1779 but it wasn't until 1781 he announced it so his discovery went unnoticed. Johann Bode found it on April 4, 1779 which he published the same year getting credit for its discovery. Messier did find it himself on March 1, 1780 apparently unaware of Bode's announcement and added it to his list. The first mention of it's "black eye" was by William Herschel when he observed it in 1785 and 1789.

My image has a short asteroid trail in the upper left corner it is (17083) 1999 JB4 among other designations it has had.

SEDS: http://messier.seds.org/m/m064.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for M064