NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Features Webb Telescope View of M64

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) program featured an image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope of the galaxy M64 on September 16, 2026, according to the NASA APOD website.

M64 is widely known by the nickname "Black Eye Galaxy," a name derived from a distinctive dark band of absorbing dust that appears in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, as commonly described in astronomical references cited by NASA's APOD archive.

APOD is a long-running NASA initiative that publishes a new astronomical image or photograph each day, accompanied by a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer, according to the program's website. The initiative includes an online archive, a submissions process for images, and a searchable index and calendar of past entries.

The September 16 entry adds to a series of APOD features that have highlighted observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, which operates alongside the Hubble Space Telescope as part of NASA's ongoing astronomical imaging efforts, according to the source material.

NASA did not provide additional technical details about the specific instruments or observation parameters used to capture the M64 image in the excerpt available from the APOD listing.