Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  M 104  ·  NGC 4594  ·  Sombrero galaxy
Messier 104 or M104 or Sombrero Galaxy, Stephen Harris
Messier 104 or M104 or Sombrero Galaxy
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Messier 104 or M104 or Sombrero Galaxy

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I really had to crop this image. Difficult to pull detail for my 80mm refractor.

The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as Messier Object 104, M104 or NGC 4594) is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo located 28 million light-years (8.6 Mpc) from Earth. The galaxy has a diameter of approximately 50,000 light-years, 30% the size of the Milky Way. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its inclined disk. The dark dust lane and the bulge give this galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. Astronomers initially thought that the halo was small and light, indicative of a spiral galaxy, but Spitzer found that the halo around the Sombrero Galaxy is larger and more massive than previously thought, indicative of a giant elliptical galaxy. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of +9.0, making it easily visible with amateur telescopes, and it's considered by some authors to be the brightest galaxy within a radius of 10 megaparsecs of the Milky Way. The large bulge, the central supermassive black hole, and the dust lane all attract the attention of professional astronomers.

The Sombrero Galaxy has a relatively large number of globular clusters. Observational studies of globular clusters in the Sombrero Galaxy have produced estimates of the population in the range of 1,200 to 2,000. The ratio of the number of globular clusters to the total luminosity of the galaxy is high compared to the Milky Way and similar galaxies with small bulges, but the ratio is comparable to other galaxies with large bulges. These results have been repeatedly used to demonstrate that the number of globular clusters in galaxies is thought to be related to the size of the galaxies' bulges. The surface density of the globular clusters generally follows the light profile of the bulge except for near the center of the galaxy.

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Messier 104 or M104 or Sombrero Galaxy, Stephen Harris