More M64

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M64 from the University of Alabama

The “Black Eye” or “Sleeping Beauty” galaxy M64 was

recently shown to have two counterrotating systems of stars and gas

in its disk. The peculiar dust lane on one side of the nucleus (also

a site of star formation, as shown by the blue knots imbedded in it)

may be caused by material from a former companion which has been

accreted but has yet to settle into the mean orbital plane of the disk.

This image is a three-color composite from BVR CCD frames taken with an

RCA CCD at the 1.1-meter Hall telescope of Lowell Observatory, by Bill

Keel and Anatoly Zasov.

Credit: Bill Keel,

University of Alabama.

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