One arm of dust arcs through the eastern portion of Leo into Coma Berenices, just south of M64, the
Black Eye galaxy. On a night under less than ideal conditions with a SQM reading of 21.1,1 barely saw a bright patch to the southeast of M64.
As we move south from CVn to Coma Berenices, we can follow a string of 9th and 10th magnitude galaxies and eventually we reach M64, the
Black Eye Galaxy. This has a particularly remarkable dust lane structure offset from the centre, that gives it its common name.
Centauros A was for once a hamburger (if you were hungry you could even imagine some lettuce and perhaps a gherkin ...) and the
Black Eye galaxy turned out to be a black eyelid partially covering a rather bright eye.
M 64 known as the
Black Eye Galaxy is the brightest and another easy target is NGC 4565 both of these can be found within the V shape of Coma.
His shot of M64, the
Black Eye Galaxy in Coma Berenices, for example, is a composite with an exposure duration totaling 170 minutes--a long "luminance" exposure through a clear filter plus shorter ones through red, green, and blue filters.
Scopes with apertures of 30 inches (76 centimeters) or more attracted huge enthusiastic crowds eager to view their favorite objects or perhaps see for themselves why M64, for example, really deserves its nickname, the
Black Eye Galaxy.