Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  M 104  ·  NGC 4594  ·  Sombrero Galaxy
M104 Sombrero Galaxy, Joe Niemeyer
M104 Sombrero Galaxy
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M104 Sombrero Galaxy

M104 Sombrero Galaxy, Joe Niemeyer
M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M104 Sombrero Galaxy

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Continuing my exploration of galaxies in the Spring, here is my image of the iconic Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104 and NGC 4594. It is located over 31 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. With a total mass of about 800 billion suns, it is one of the most massive objects in the Virgo galaxy cluster. Its surrounding dark dust lane and bright central bulge give this galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. M104 has a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass estimated at one-billion times the mass of our sun. Whaa, that's heavy man!

Battling the full moon, I had to use a filter to block the moonglow as best I could. This image is a stack of forty 300-second exposures at 2350mm focal length, calibrated with 20 each dark, flat, and dark flat frames, post-processed with StarNet++ and Photoshop.

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M104 Sombrero Galaxy, Joe Niemeyer