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Instrument |
12.5" RCOS @
~f/9 (2897 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel. The Zoomify image scale
is 0.64 to 2.56 arcsec / pixel. |
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Mount |
Paramount ME |
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Camera |
SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Gen II Filters |
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Acquisition Data |
5/7/2011 to 5/30/2011 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3
& CCDSoft. AOL guided |
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Exposure |
Lum 420 min (28 x 15
min, bin 1x1... best 28 of 39)
RGB 841 min (18 x 15 min each, bin 2x2) |
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Software |
CCDSoft, CCDStack,
Photoshop CS3, Noel Carboni's actions
and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator.
eXcalibrator
2.0-Beta
for (u-g), (g-r) color calibration, using 5 stars
from the SDSS-DR7 database.
PixFix32 (pre-beta) to
repair column defects.
CCDStack to calibrate,
register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures,
selective deconvolution
and LRGB combine.
PhotoShop for
non-linear stretching
and LLRGB combine.
Noiseware Pro, a PhotoShop
plug-in. |
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Comment |
North is at about 2:00
o'clock, the image is rotated 45° clockwise.
M64 (NGC 4826) was discovered by Edward Pigott in March 1779. The
galaxy is located in the constellation Coma Berenices, at a distance
of about 17 million light-years. A dark band of dust partially
obscures the galaxy's bright core, giving the appearance of a black
eye, when viewed with a telescope. However, like many objects, with
descriptive names, long CCD exposures reveal a different picture.
Recent observations show that the outer regions of M64 rotate in the
opposite direction from the inner. The galaxy appears to be made of
two concentric, counter-rotating systems. The inner system is about
3,000 light-years in diameter and the outer extends out to about
40,000 light-years. The shear area, between these two regions, seems
to be triggering the formation of new stars.
M64's black eye and counter-rotating regions are attributed to a
collision with a satellite galaxy, maybe one billion years ago.
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