M104 Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo

I liked the look that my Seestar got of M104, the Sombrero Galaxy so I took a closer look with my C11 last night for about three and a half hours.

 

The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), is a famous unbarred spiral galaxy. It lies at a distance of 29.3 million light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Virgo.

 

The Sombrero Galaxy is known for its appearance, similar to that of a Mexican hat, with a bright white core surrounded by thick lanes of dust and a halo of globular clusters and stars. The galaxy appears almost exactly edge-on when observed from Earth.

 

There is a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Sombrero Galaxy. It is one of the most massive black holes detected in galaxies near the Milky Way. It is believed to have a mass of at least a billion suns. This would make it about 250 times larger than the black hole in the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

 

 

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: Optolong L-Pro filter 1.25"

Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 5 Mini

Focal reducer: TS Optics 0.63x

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

 

Stacked from:

Lights 217 at 60 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 60 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flats 30 at 220 ms, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flats 30 at 220ms gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Labels added in Photoshop CS4

 

Done