AstroBinAstroBin
Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  M 104  ·  NGC 4524  ·  NGC 4594  ·  NGC 4680  ·  Sombrero galaxy
M104 Wide Field, NeedMoreCoffee
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M104 Wide Field

M104 Wide Field, NeedMoreCoffee
Powered byPixInsight

M104 Wide Field

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Description

Sensor T ~ -22 C. Lowest read noise gain. Unguided.

From my backyard this part of the sky is probably the most light polluted. Not to mention the rising of a rather bright object called the moon...Nevertheless the image turned out ok given only 3 hours acquisition (and as long as I don't stretch it too far). Will add more data when I get another clear night. Still struggling with star shapes and colors.

From Wikipedia/HubbleSite:

"At a relatively bright magnitude of +8, M104 is just beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility and is easily seen through small telescopes. The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 28 million light-years from Earth.

Hubble easily resolves M104's rich system of globular clusters, estimated to be nearly 2,000 in number - 10 times as many as orbit our Milky Way galaxy. The ages of the clusters are similar to the clusters in the Milky Way, ranging from 10-13 billion years old. Embedded in the bright core of M104 is a smaller disk, which is tilted relative to the large disk. X-ray emission suggests that there is material falling into the compact core, where a 1-billion-solar-mass black hole resides.

In the 19th century, some astronomers speculated that M104 was simply an edge-on disk of luminous gas surrounding a young star, which is prototypical of the genesis of our solar system. But in 1912, astronomer V. M. Slipher discovered that the hat-like object appeared to be rushing away from us at 700 miles per second. This enormous velocity offered some of the earliest clues that the Sombrero was really another galaxy, and that the universe was expanding in all directions."

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M104 Wide Field, NeedMoreCoffee
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