Object Data: M64, (NGC 4526) M64 is a very unusual-looking spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Coma Berenices. This is the famous Blackeye galaxy. It has also been called the Sleping Beauty galaxy. The name Blackeye comes from a dark dust lane that obscures the light near the center of this galaxy. This dust lane is believed to be a site of active star formation. This dust lane is visible even in small telescopes. The distance of this galaxy is not very well known, but best guesses place it at around 20 million light years from Earth. At magnitude 8.5, the Blackeye can be located on a good night with a pair of binoculars. A large telescope is required to see any real amount of detail in this galaxy.

Date: February 5th, 2005
Location: RASC, Niagara Center Observatory,
Conditions: No wind -12C degrees C, Transparency=6, Seeing=7 (all out of 10), New Moon, Heavy fog rolled till it became litterly impossible to drive anywhere. Fog was heavy from midnight till 4am and then cleared suffiiciently to grab a couple of hours of Luminance. The cold temperatures combined with very high humidity left a sheet of ice on everything.
Optics: TMB 175mm APO, 1400mm f/7. Focusing with FocusMax 2.01 through an Optec TCS focuser.
Mount: Paramount ME with The Sky driven through ASCOM 4.0.
Autoguiding: 3 sec updates through MX5 Guider, average +/- 0.2 arc second errors. Using MaxIm's MicroGuide.
Camera and Filters: Starlight Xpress SXV-9, Optec Filter wheel with 2mm LRGB, I/R Parfocal filters, Lumicon Deep Sky filter, Resolution is .95 arc seconds per pixel for a FOV of 21.85 X 16.45 arcminutes.
Processing: 45 minutes for RGB, 165 minutes Lum., 5 minute subs, (LRGB), for a total of 5 hours. DDP and import of FITs into PS. Curves and Levels tuning in Photoshop on each channel plus Steve Cannistra's Luminance Corrected LRGB methodology. I then smoothed it with Neat Image with minimal noise reduction. Further to the original posting, Albert Saikaley worked on the colors to help off-set the effects of the fog had on image. This collaboration is the new image above, (thanks Albert).

Notes: The skies over Toronto were not promising to be very good but down south near the Nigara Falls area is the Royal Astronomical Society's, Niagara Center
Observatory which sits between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, the Clear Sky Clock promised excellent weather. Upon contacting the centers, Director and
Members' Observers Group Coordinator, Leslie Marczi, I was able to enjoy one of Canada's most southern astronomy groups at their observatory. The skies were crystal clear upon arrival and after 3 runs of 25 star T-point alignments, I was ready for imaging. Within an hour, fog rolled in and at times, the only semi-clear area was directly aimed at the Zenith. M64 was well positioned and I continued to capture photons while enjoying the hospitality of Les, Mark and the various other members of the Niagra Center. The facility has pads, a couple of roll-off observatories and power, (which came in very handy as my battery bank decided to die in the -12C temperatures).

I will be going back to the center again both for the excellent view of the southern skies and the great people there, (as well as to re-shoot this great galaxy in the normally 5.6 mag skies there).