How did a Galaxy

Get a Black Eye?

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Hello my name is Stephen Smartt. I'm a scientist in the Astrophysics and Planetary Science Division of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Queen's University Belfast. I use the HST to look for supernovas; the explosive deaths of giant stars.

The galaxy above is M64.   It's also known as the Black Eye Galaxy.  

Your challenge is to process the image to get evidence to explain how the galaxy got a black eye.

Obtain an image of M64 using the Wide Field Planetary camera and a visible light sensor.  

Process your image with Registax to see what is inside the dark patch. You will need to stretch the contrast.  Try using the gamma curve tool on the wavelet processing page.  You can also try changing the colour balance.   Hydrogen gas glows red/pink when it gets excited by ultra violet light– try enhancing the red channel to see where the excited hydrogen is.   What do you think is making the ultraviolet light?

Click above to get the image

 Use Carte du Ciel to locate M64 and print out a constellation map of its position

 Image facts:

Object position: R.A. 12h 56m 43s.88
 Dec. +21° 41' 00".1

Distance 17 million light years

Image field: 7,400 light-years

  RESULTS

To compare your results to ours and find out more about the science from this image click here

To check the position of M64 click here

The original data you are working on comes from a combination of HST and ground based images.