- M 64 The Black Eye Galaxy
M 64 (NGC 4826) has a relatively modest size (56,000 LY in diameter) and lies in the constellation Coma Berenices at a distance of around 18 million LY. It lies in a small group of neighboring galaxies that possibly includes M 94. It was once thought to be part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, but its currently determined distance puts it only around a third of the way to that group. In my image, the upper part of the galaxy is tipped toward us. A band of dark dust circles the core of the galaxy. The far side of this structure is washed out by the brightness of the core, but we see the back side in shadow on the near (upper) side of the galaxy. The result is a dark crescent above the bright core reminiscent of the "shiner" that someone gets when punched in the eye. M 64 had three independent discoverers. It was first observed by the Englishman Edward Pigott on the 23rd of March, 1779. Twelve days later, the Prussian Johann Elert Bode independently observed it. When Messier observed it on the 1st of March, 1780, he was unaware of the two other discoveries.
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