M-64 is a large bright spiral galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices which is easily found, just 1 degree ENE of the star 35 Comae. It gets its common name "The Black Eye Galaxy" from the large, dramatic dust lane which curves just above the nucleus of the galaxy. M-64 lies at a distance of about
24 million light years from Earth and is 60,000 light years in diameter. It was discovered by Edward Piggott in 1779 and was added to Messier's catalog as number 64 that same year. M-64 is classified as a type (R)SA(rs) Seyfert II galaxy.
This image was acquired on May 7, 2021, is a 1 hour integration of 4 minute exposures through the Celestron C-11 at f/2 using the HyperStar III imaging system and the ZWO ASI 071MC color CMOS camera operating at -10 degrees below ambient temperature and binned 1 X 1. Guided, captured and combined using Maxim DL5 Pro. Post processed using PhotoShop CS2, Gradient XTerminator, StarShrink, Carboni's Astro Tools and NoiseWare.