M64 - Not M94!

[silentrunning]

On opening PI for the first time in ages I discovered I had some unprocessed colour data of M94 and figured I would try and get some L subs last night. Well I thought M94 was the Black Eye galaxy so started imaging only later to realise M94 is The Croc Eye galaxy! So I ended up with 2 hours worth of 10 min subs of the Black Eye galaxy, M64! DOH! Oh well I haven't imaged this before so I let the sequence complete.

 

This was a tough one to process. It's angular size is smaller than I imagined and all but the black strip in the heart of the galaxy is a very milky, almost undefined oval around it. I've managed to pull out some detail of what looks like some spiral structure but overall much tougher than I imagined it would be. Looking across the web I can't find any staggering amateur images of it so I guess it is a tough one.

 

I did manage to get a few subs on M94 which I've yet to process but I feel 4 frames won't be enough to do it justice.

 

Anyways here's M64.

 

[+Graham]

If you ever manage to get that processed it will be top draw.

Cannot recollect ever seeing that one before. 

[silentrunning]

Cheers Graham

 

I think the only answer is more data to reduce the noise in that milky out zone. NR never leaves me satisfied though so I tend to leave the noise in and reduce it's effects in the background with histogram adjustments but not see easy to get rid of in the intermediate brightness.

[BAZ]

Zoomed in, there's some nice dust lanes. Nice one.