Black Eye Galaxy

The Black Eye Galaxy (also called Sleeping Beauty Galaxy or Evil Eye Galaxy and designated Messier 64, M64, or NGC 4826) is a relatively isolated<ref name=Israel2009/> spiral galaxy 17 million light-years away in the mildly northern constellation of Coma Berenices. It was discovered by Edward Pigott in March 1779, and independently by Johann Elert Bode in April of the same year, as well as by Charles Messier the next year. A dark band of absorbing dust partially in front of its bright nucleus gave rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye", "Evil Eye", or "Sleeping Beauty" galaxy.<ref name="freestarcharts.com">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> M64 is well known among amateur astronomers due to its form in small telescopes and visibility across inhabited latitudes.

This galaxy is inclined 60° to the line-of-sight and has a position angle of 112°.<ref name=Israel2009/> At the distance of this galaxy, it has a linear scale of Template:Cvt per arcsecond.<ref name=Israel2009/> The morphological classification in the De Vaucouleurs system is (R)SA(rs)ab,<ref name=vaucoulerus1991/> where the '(R)' indicates an outer ring-like structure, 'SA' denotes a non-barred spiral, '(rs)' means a transitional inner ring/spiral structure, and 'ab' says the spiral arms are fairly tightly wound.<ref name=deVaucouleurs1963/> Ann et al. (2015) gave it a class of SABa,<ref name=Ann2015/> suggesting a weakly barred spiral galaxy with tightly wound arms.

M64 is a type 2 Seyfert galaxy<ref name=Malkan2017/> with an HII/LINER nucleus. The central region is a weak source of radio emission.<ref name=Israel2009/> A soft X-ray source has been detected at the nucleus, which is most likely coming from the circumnuclear region rather than directly from an active galactic nucleus.<ref name=Grier2011/> There is an inner disk of molecular gas that is truncated at a radius of Template:Cvt. At present, the non-rotational motions of this disk do not significantly feed the core, but the disk does produce a vigorous rate of star formation, with also approximately 100 billion stars inside the galaxy.<ref name="freestarcharts.com"/> There is also evidence of a recent large inflow of mass.<ref name=Burillo2003/> The central supermassive black hole is calculated to have a mass of about Template:Solar mass.<ref name=Gultekin/>

The interstellar medium of Messier 64 consists of two counter-rotating disks that are approximately equal in mass.<ref name="1992Nature360,442"/> The inner disk contains the prominent dust lanes of the galaxy. The stellar population of the galaxy exhibits no measurable counter-rotation.<ref name="1995ApJ438,155"/> Possible formation scenarios include a merger with a gas-rich satellite galaxy in a retrograde orbit, or the continued accretion of gas clouds from the intergalactic medium.<ref name="1992Nature360,442"/><ref name="1995ApJ438,155"/> It has a diameter of Template:Convert.<ref name=NED />

Messier 64 is part of the Virgo Supercluster.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Wide field view (0.8m Schulman Telescope)

See also

• List of Messier objects
• NGC 4622 – A galaxy with leading spiral arms.

External links

• Messier 64, SEDS Messier pages
• ESA/Hubble images of M64
• Template:APOD
• Template:WikiSky
• a real photo by Pete Albrecht Template:Webarchive
• Black Eye Galaxy (M64) at Constellation Guide