Messier 64, the Black Eye Galaxy (aka, the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy and the Evil Eye Galaxy), has a distinctive band of dark gas and dust obscuring its bright nucleus. The stars and gas in the inner region of this galaxy are rotating in the opposite direction to the gas in the outer region. This is most likely the result of a merger with a satellite galaxy in the distant past. The zone where these counter-rotating regions collide is a region of intense star formation. This image is heavily cropped. I was only able to capture about 25 minutes of data with a bright moon close to the imaged area. Taken with the RASA 8, DS10C and L-Pro filter. The final image is a stack of 217 x 7s at zero gain and no binning.
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