Taking Vengeance on the Black-Eye Galaxy M64

Last summer I took a wide angle shot of Coma Berenices and ran it through Astrometry.net to see what I could see. I identified the Black-Eye Galaxy as a tiny speck of gray in a sea of gray specks. I vowed to return to the Coma Berenices at 300mm to get a closer look, but when I returned I was off by a good 15 degrees and accidentally photographed globular cluster M3.

Two nights ago, I collected 1048 frames of the clear night sky from my apartment balcony. I have a shutter lock, and I have to step off the balcony and stand in the doorway so my shifting weight doesn't shake the entire wood balcony.

I finally bagged M64 undeniably after almost a year. It's a little anticlimactic, but gratifying. Messier total is up to 56 out of 110!

Crop and labeled version of the image below

Uncropped M64 with Canon T5i, stack of 106 subs, 71 darks, 53 bias, each at ISO 6400, f/5.6, 300mm, 1.3 sec
Total exposure time 2 min 13 sec