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First light with my Skywatcher 200p
ASI2600MC Pro
Harmonic Mount
Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop
Its was super windy, so out of 2hrs I could only use about 50mins of Lights. I didn't collimate either :| but for a test run I'm happy with the result!
Bortle 5/6
57 Lights
100 Bias
40 Darks
40 Flats.
M104 (NGC 4594) Sombrero Galaxy. The Sombrero Galaxy is located between the constellations Virgo and Corvus. At its center, there is a supermassive black hole.
This photograph was taken on March 25, 2025, at 2:36 AM from Maharagama, Sri Lanka, using a ZWO SeeStar S50 without LPF. The exposure time was 15 minutes.
The location of the photograph experiences significant light pollution, with a Bortle scale rating of 6.
The raw image has been processed using Graxpert, Siril, and GIMP.
M104 au Quattro 200-800 + caméra ASI1600 MC + filtre Ircut.
40 poses de 180s traitées sous Siril et Photoshop. Gestion de la session NINA.
Another view of the Sombrero Galaxy, this time from recently released data from JWST. Part of a project in which I will eventually combine images from a variety of sources.
Processing Notes: There are some blank areas along the sides where data are absent. The footprint of the mosaic was difficult to work with, and I didn't want to cut off too much just because the edges weren't straight.
Red: MIRI F1280W
Yellow-Green: MIRI F1130W
Cyan: MIRI F770W
North is about 12.4° clockwise from up.
Reprocessing some old but great Hubble data.
M104, also known as the Sombrero Galaxy, looks like a flat disk with a soft halo of stars inside. The brown band of dust in the foreground of the disk is particularly striking.
This is about as close as one can get to a human visible light image. You'd never see it this bright with your own eyes, but if you could, it'd look about like this. I increased the saturation a fair amount to make it easier to see the colors, but most people will probably say it's not very colorful at all, which is fair enough.
Red: ACS/WFC F625W
Green: ACS/WFC F555W
Blue: ACS/WFC F435W
North is up.
Edited Webb Space Telescope image of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) in infrared. Color/processing variant. (Of note are that all space telescope (and ground telescope that use digital images (eg, all of them) use various colored filters to gather light a specific frequencies and then combine several images with different filters to create color images. The colors are generally assigned to look "nice" and not necessarily what humans would see if they could actually see these with their naked eyes. (Most astronomical objects that people see through telescopes appear black and white.) So, the colors you see were assigned by a person (or committee) to look nice or to bring out salient scientific information. This is especially true with images taken with filters outside the range of what humans can see - eg, infrared, X-ray, ultraviolet, etc.)
Original caption: The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. The mid-infrared light highlights the gas and dust that are part of star formation taking place among the Sombrero galaxy’s outer disk. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year. It’s not a particular hotbed of star formation. The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. [Image description: Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, blue disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). The galaxy has a small bright core at the centre. There is an inner disk that is clearer, with speckles of stars scattered throughout. The outer disk of the galaxy is whiteish-blue, and clumpy, like clouds in the sky. There are different coloured dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy.]
This is our version, via our artificial intelligence model, of the image weic2427a provided by Esa Webb about Sombrero Galaxy (also known NGC 4594 or Messier Object 104 or M104). James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring.
The mid-infrared light highlights the gas and dust that are part of star formation taking place among the Sombrero galaxy’s outer disk. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year. It’s not a particular hotbed of star formation.
The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The image was made public on November 25, 2024 at 16:00 UTC.
The file is available at 182.85 million pixels for download at a resolution of 23388x7818 pixels.
Map of colours in the image from Webb:
blue for 7.7 μm (PAH);
green for 11.3 μm (PAH);
red for 12.8 μm.
Constellation: Virgo.
Dimensions Image: 7.2 arcminutes across (60,000 light-years).
Distance: 29-30 million light-years.
Exposure Dates: June 7, 2024
Object Description: Edge-on lenticular galaxy.
Credits: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI. Magnification and reconstruction via AI by PipploIMP.
Our Facebook page: bit.ly/PipploFB
Our YouTube channel: bit.ly/PipploYT
La galaxie du Sombrero M 104 (NGC 4594) est située à 30 mimmions d'années-lumière de la Terre dans la constellation de la Vierge (Virgo). Son noyau lumineux est faible, révélant un disque intérieur lisse et des détails sur la façon dont le gaz aggloméré dans l'anneau extérieur est distribué. Si la poussière est l'un des éléments constitutifs essentiels de l'univers, c'est souvent là que s'y trouve la formation d'étoiles. Bien que cette galaxie en particulier ne soit pas un foyer particulier de formation d'étoiles, celle-ci contient de nombreuses étoiles, en particulier des groupements serrés appelés amas globulaires.
La nature agglomérante de la poussière, où MIRI détecte des molécules contenant du carbone appelées hydrocarbures aromatiques polycycliques, peut indiquer la présence de jeunes régions de formation d’étoiles. Cependant, contrairement à certaines galaxies, notamment Messier 82 où naissent 10 fois plus d’étoiles que dans la Voie lactée, la galaxie du Sombrero n’est pas un foyer particulier de formation d’étoiles. Ses anneaux produisent moins d’une masse solaire d’étoile par an, en comparaison des deux masses solaires environ de la Voie lactée par an.
Même le trou noir supermassif, également connu sous le nom de noyau galactique actif, au centre de la galaxie du Sombrero est plutôt docile, même avec une masse importante de 9 milliards de masses solaires. Classé comme un noyau galactique actif de faible luminosité, il grignote lentement la matière qui tombe de la galaxie, tout en envoyant un jet brillant et relativement petit.
La galaxie du Sombrero abrite également quelques 2 000 amas globulaires, des collections de centaines de milliers d’étoiles anciennes maintenues ensemble par la gravité.
Sur l’image de MIRI, des galaxies de formes et de couleurs variées jonchent l’arrière-plan de l’espace. Sur l'image de Hubble (voir ci-dessous *), la galaxie ressemble un peu plus à un chapeau en lumière visible qui met en valeur son noyau brillant proéminent.
Description de l'image
Le disque bleu très oblong de la galaxie s'étend de gauche à droite selon un angle d'environ 10 heures à 5 heures avec un petit noyau brillant au centre. Si le disque intérieur est plus clair et parsemé de taches d'étoiles, le disque extérieur est bleu-blanc et grumeleux, comme les nuages de notre ciel. Des points de différentes couleurs et des galaxies lointaines sont tachetés dans le fond noir de l'espace qui entoure la galaxie (cf. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI).
Pour situer la galaxie du Sombrero M 104 (Weeb-MIRI) dans la constellation de la Vierge (Virgo) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/48686241433
*Pour voir la galaxie du Sombrero M 104 (Hubble) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/48680246151/in/datepost...
Animation: live.staticflickr.com/65535/54169063775_e680ae473e_o.gif
M104, Sombrero Galaxy:
12:39:59.377 -11:37:21.54
Hubble Source (NASA/ESA): esahubble.org/images/opo0328a/
Webb Source: www.flickr.com/photos/196439708@N03/54166481942/in/datepo...
Composite:
Hubble: Unaltered
Webb/MIRI: Red
M104, Sombrero Galaxy:
12:39:59.377 -11:37:21.54
Hubble Source (NASA/ESA): esahubble.org/images/opo0328a/
Webb Source: www.flickr.com/photos/196439708@N03/54166481942/in/datepo...
Composite:
Hubble: Unaltered
Webb/MIRI: Red
PID 6565, 2024-06-07
M104, Sombrero Galaxy:
12:39:59.377 -11:37:21.54
F770W Blue
F1130W Green
F1280W Red
MAST
Ring around the galaxy… Here’s Webb’s stunning new mid-infrared image of M104.
This bright core of the galaxy is dim in this view (the first slide), revealing a smooth inner disk as well as details of how the clumpy gas in the outer ring is distributed. Dust is one of the universe’s essential building blocks, and often where star formation is found in galaxies. Though this particular galaxy is not a particular hotbed of star formation, it does contain lots of stars for scientists to study, especially tight groupings called globular clusters.
Also known as the Sombrero galaxy, M104 looks a bit more hat-like in Hubble’s visible-light image, which showcases its prominent glowing core. (link to Hubble image)
Read more: go.nasa.gov/4eQ4key
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Image description: Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, blue disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). The galaxy has a small bright core at the center. There is an inner disk that is clearer, with speckles of stars scattered throughout. The outer disk of the galaxy is whiteish-blue, and clumpy, like clouds in the sky. There are different colored dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy.
Constel.: Virgo
Distancia.: 29.3 millions light years
Magnit.: 9.15
A colleague at UNC-CH recently gave a talk about a UCD galaxy near M104. I took it upon myself to try to image it with the Seestar. After three hours of exposure, a smudge appeared in the correct place. The upload is not as clear as on my screen here. I will add more time. See this for more details:
www.williamsseaandsky.com/?page_id=6366
The Sombrero Galaxy (M 104) Is a Spiral Galaxy that resides in the constellation of the Virgin at a distance of 34 million light years. Its distinctive dark dust lane bisecting the galaxy gives it the appearance of a Sombrero.
Photo taken with a ZWO Seestar S50 from Alpha Ridge Park in Howard County Maryland. The photo was created by taking 10-second photos for 41-minutes and then stacking them to create the final picture.
I've been dying to get this with my Celestron C8 since acquiring the Celestron Starsense Autoguider system. Quite happy with the result! I love side-on and almost-side on galaxies look - for some reason it shows off their vastness to me.
With an apparent magnitude of 8, the Sombrero galaxy is beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility but can be spotted through small telescopes most easily during May. M104 is located 28 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, and with a mass equal to 800 billion suns, it is one of the most massive objects in the Virgo galaxy cluster.
M104 was discovered in 1781 by the French astronomer and comet hunter Pierre Méchain, one of Charles Messier’s colleagues.
Image Details:
- Imaging Scope: Celestron C8 SCT
- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with ZWO IR cut filter
- Guider: Celestron Starsense Autoguider
- Mount: Celestron CGEM
- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap
- Guiding Software: Celestron
- Light Frames: 25*4 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C
- Dark Frames: 25*4 mins
- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, and Topaz Denoise AI
The Sombrero Galaxy, M104
