View allAll Photos Tagged M104
S124
Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais
Bonhams
Estimated : € 55.000 - 75.000
Sold for € 54.050
Parijs - Paris
Frankrijk - France
February 2018
- One of only 171 built
- Seven seats
- Circa 58,500 km from new and ready to enjoy
- Automatic transmission
- Full Service history
'For anyone wishing to give their Mercedes that extra personal touch, Mercedes-AMG GmbH has just the answers. The Daimler-Chrysler subsidiary offers the combined experience of Mercedes-Benz and AMG in the field of high-quality enhancements for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and puts the emphasis firmly on individuality when creating the customer's dream Mercedes.' - Mercedes-AMG GmbH.
AMG, which is now the official performance division of Mercedes-Benz, has a long history of producing high-performance derivatives of Mercedes' standard production vehicles, and these improved versions enjoy an enthusiastic following world-wide, with prominent figures of the motorsport, entertainment, sport and business communities being counted among aficionados. The Affalterbach-based company first offered the 'E36' package of tuning and other improvements for the Mercedes-Benz E280 Coupé, Cabriolet and Estate in time for the 1994 season. Belonging to the medium-sized, W124-bodied E-Class, the latter were built in limited numbers in the traditional, classic Mercedes-Benz manner, being among the best-specified and most luxuriously equipped models in the range. Chief among the E36's enhancements was the larger, 3.6-litre version of the six-cylinder, 24-valve, M104 engine. Producing 272 bhp and driving via a four-speed automatic transmission and a specific sport suspension, this state-of-the-art power unit was capable of propelling the E36 to a (limited) top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h). External clues as to what lurked beneath the bonnet included body-coloured side skirts and bumper valances, and AMG's own special 17" alloy wheels.
This very rare, fully AMG-converted E36 sports estate was first registered on 1st July 1995 in Germany, and on 31st May 1996 arrived in Japan (old Japanese registration document on file). The car is finished in Polar White with blue leather interior, and comes fully optioned with sunroof, Becker radio with 6 speakers, comfortable seating for seven with electric front seats, blue leather and wooden steering wheel, electric steering column. Well documented, the Mercedes has had only three owners, the last since 2002. All services have been carried out by Mercedes-Benz dealerships, and there are invoices totaling more than € 5.000 with the car, which is presented in generally excellent condition. Recently serviced, it is offered with French Contrôle Technique, manufacturer's specification sheet, all books and manuals, three AMG brochures (French, English, and German), and a magazine article comparing the E36 and Volvo 850 T-5R estates. The car currently has German registration papers but a certificate to register it in France is present also ("PV de Réception à Titre Isolé").
The one and only remaining step entrance single decker bus still to be in regular stage carriage work in the city of York, Volvo B10B Wright Endurance J6 SOE (M104 UKX) is now something of a phoenix.... it had been marked down for scrap, but has been tested (presumably MOT) and has passed the testing - this is its first day back after the test, the first of many for a while longer yet, and is at York Stonebow with the 181 to Castle Howard with Paul at the wheel.
M104 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo. It is 30 million light years distant. The central bulge contains a supermassive black hole.
Image made on 31st May 2024 using an Askar 151PHQA telescope and a ASI533 camera, all on an AM5 mount controlled by an ASIAIR+ 70 light 1 minute light frames were stacked and processed using Pixinsight.
This is the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), in the constellation Virgo.
Shot with a Nikon D7100, with the William Optics Zenithstar 61 and WO Flat61A.
60 1-minute light frames, 15 dark frames.
Messier 104, or the Sombrero Hat Galaxy.
8 hours of exposure through a RCOS 14.25 " telescope with a SBIG STL11000 CCD & AOL.
S124
Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais
Bonhams
Estimated : € 55.000 - 75.000
Sold for € 54.050
Parijs - Paris
Frankrijk - France
February 2018
- One of only 171 built
- Seven seats
- Circa 58,500 km from new and ready to enjoy
- Automatic transmission
- Full Service history
'For anyone wishing to give their Mercedes that extra personal touch, Mercedes-AMG GmbH has just the answers. The Daimler-Chrysler subsidiary offers the combined experience of Mercedes-Benz and AMG in the field of high-quality enhancements for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and puts the emphasis firmly on individuality when creating the customer's dream Mercedes.' - Mercedes-AMG GmbH.
AMG, which is now the official performance division of Mercedes-Benz, has a long history of producing high-performance derivatives of Mercedes' standard production vehicles, and these improved versions enjoy an enthusiastic following world-wide, with prominent figures of the motorsport, entertainment, sport and business communities being counted among aficionados. The Affalterbach-based company first offered the 'E36' package of tuning and other improvements for the Mercedes-Benz E280 Coupé, Cabriolet and Estate in time for the 1994 season. Belonging to the medium-sized, W124-bodied E-Class, the latter were built in limited numbers in the traditional, classic Mercedes-Benz manner, being among the best-specified and most luxuriously equipped models in the range. Chief among the E36's enhancements was the larger, 3.6-litre version of the six-cylinder, 24-valve, M104 engine. Producing 272 bhp and driving via a four-speed automatic transmission and a specific sport suspension, this state-of-the-art power unit was capable of propelling the E36 to a (limited) top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h). External clues as to what lurked beneath the bonnet included body-coloured side skirts and bumper valances, and AMG's own special 17" alloy wheels.
This very rare, fully AMG-converted E36 sports estate was first registered on 1st July 1995 in Germany, and on 31st May 1996 arrived in Japan (old Japanese registration document on file). The car is finished in Polar White with blue leather interior, and comes fully optioned with sunroof, Becker radio with 6 speakers, comfortable seating for seven with electric front seats, blue leather and wooden steering wheel, electric steering column. Well documented, the Mercedes has had only three owners, the last since 2002. All services have been carried out by Mercedes-Benz dealerships, and there are invoices totaling more than € 5.000 with the car, which is presented in generally excellent condition. Recently serviced, it is offered with French Contrôle Technique, manufacturer's specification sheet, all books and manuals, three AMG brochures (French, English, and German), and a magazine article comparing the E36 and Volvo 850 T-5R estates. The car currently has German registration papers but a certificate to register it in France is present also ("PV de Réception à Titre Isolé").
LA Coaches of Sale: (M104 PVN) a Plaxton Pointer bodied Volvo B6R, painted in all over white with two tone blue roof livery and captured in Altrincham Interchange about to operate a journey on Service 281 Timperley Circular.
© Christopher Lowe.
Date: 29th January 2007.
Ref No. 0014049/CL..
La galaxie elliptique du Sombrero M 104 ou NGC 4594 (Weeb-NIRCam) se trouve à environ 30 millions d'années-lumière de la Terre dans la constellation de la Vierge (Virgo) et possède une masse équivalente à environ 800 milliards de soleils. Elle s’éloigne de nous à la vitesse de 1 000 km/s et est presque visible par la tranche, à savoir de profil. La poussière de
son anneau externe bloque ici la lumière stellaire provenant des étoiles situées à l'intérieur, son bulbe contenant un trou noir supermassif d'un milliard de masses solaires.
Dans sa région centrale, elle abrite environ 2 000 amas globulaires de centaines de milliers d'étoiles anciennes, maintenues ensemble par la gravité. Leurs étoiles y présentent des différences inattendues. Celles qui se forment à peu près en même temps à partir de la même matière devraient avoir des empreintes chimiques similaires, par exemple les mêmes quantités d'éléments comme l'oxygène ou le néon. Ce serait peut-être la fusion de différentes galaxies sur des milliards d'années qui expliquerait ces différences. En effet, cette théorie de la fusion expliquerait l'aspect déformé du disque interne de la galaxie. La vue à six degrés de l'équateur de la galaxie ne permettant pas de la voir directement de côté, mais légèrement d'en haut, son disque interne apparaît incliné vers l'intérieur, comme le début d'un entonnoir, au lieu d'être plat.
.La NIRCam de Webb permet également d'observer des géantes rouges, étoiles plus froides que leur grande surface les fait briller intensément, celles-ci se trouvant à l'extérieur de la galaxie, mais pas nécessairement à la même distance. Par contre, les étoiles plus petites et plus bleues du proche infrarouge disparaissent dans les longueurs d'onde plus longues.
Description de l’image
La galaxie a un disque très oblong, brun-jaunâtre, qui s’étend de gauche à droite selon un angle de 10 h à 17 h environ. Des taches brun foncé marbrées bordent ce disque et sont particulièrement visibles là où elles croisent la galaxie. Son centre brille en blanc et s’étend au-dessus et en dessous de son disque. Des points de différentes couleurs et des galaxies lointaines apparaissent sur le fond noir de l’espace qui l’entoure. En bas à droite, une étoile particulièrement brillante au premier plan présente les pics de diffraction caractéristiques de Webb (cf. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI).
Pour situer la galaxie elliptique du Sombrero M 104 ou NGC 4594 (Weeb-NIRCam) dans la constellation de la Vierge (Virgo) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/48686241433
Pour voir la galaxie elliptique du Sombrero M 104 ou NGC 4594 (Weeb-MIRI) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/54168913608
Pour voir la galaxie elliptique du Sombrero M 104 ou NGC 4594 (Hubble) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/48680246151/in/datepost...
Pound for pound the brightest galaxy in the sky.
Taken March 27th and April 11th.
Ranked by magnitude, this is the 8th brightest galaxy in the sky. However the 7 that are brighter are all bigger, so their total light is spread over a larger area, giving them a lower surface brightness.
From where I live, this galaxy never gets higher than 37 degrees above the southern horizon. So I've never even attempted to view this galaxy, because I've never had much luck finding targets that low in the southern sky (it's usually too milky). But I gave it a try when it was at it's highest, and there it was, clearly visible in 15 second exposures.
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"The Sombrero Galaxy" was discovered on May 11, 1781 by Pierre Méchain. Since Charles Messier had written notes about this galaxy, it was decided in 1921 to add this galaxy to the Messier Catalogue as M104.
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Only 33 minutes total exposure time.
Meade 2120 LX5 telescope.
Canon T2i camera.
no guider, no filters.
no flat frames, no dark frames, etc.
no stacking program.
short exposures (15 seconds), with the contrast pushed a little.
hand aligned and averaged together.
plenty of light pollution.
No noise reduction or processing, just stacking.
Hubble telescope photo of Galaxy M104 with my light scribbling. The original photo was a 20 second exposure of street and car lights, taken handheld from the car as we entered Atlanta. I added motion to it to form a sort of handwriting.
[copyright statement: Material credited to STScI on this site was created, authored, and/or prepared for NASA under Contract NAS5-26555. Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and it may be freely used as in the public domain in accordance with NASA's contract.]
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. 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.
HMS WALNEY M104
Class……………………………Sandown class minehunter
Builder………………………..Vosper Thornycroft Woolston, Southampton
Yard number……………….4267
Laid down..………………….May 1990
Launched….…………………25 Nov 1991
Completed.………………….20 Feb 1993
Propulsion.…………………..2 Voith-Schneider (diesel-electric drive): Paxman Valenta type 6RPA 200EM 1500 diesels
Speed..…………………………15 knots
Range…………………………..2600 nm at 11 knots
Fate…………………………….2010: Decommissioned. 18 November 2010. Arrived Portsmouth to be laid up. 2014 Listed for sale via the Disposal Services Authority
HMS WALNEY in an undated RN postcard
Volvo B10B Wright Endurace step entrance bus J6 SOE (M104 UKX) is heading to Exhibition Square as it passes by in Station Avenue. My thanks to the driver who slowed down a bit which allowed me to get the photo.
First generation (W124; 1993–1995)
124 series in estate (S 124),
The "E-Class" name first appeared with the facelifted W124 in 1993 for the model year 1994 (the W124 was introduced in 1984 but continued with the older naming convention until 1993, when all Mercedes-Benz models switched to a new system, e.g. E 320 instead of 300 E). The diesel versions continued to be the fuel economy option over the four and six-cylinder gasoline engines, and the gasoline V8 engines (available after 1992) increased gasoline power outputs further. Four-cylinder gasoline models were not marketed in the United States. The V8 powered sedans/saloons were named 400 E/500 E from 1992 to 1993, and E 420/E 500 after 1993. Likewise, the 3.0-litre cars (e.g. 300 E) were also re-badged to E 320 with the new 3.2-litre M104 engines and naming rationalization of 1994. For the diesel models the name change was less elegant, with the 250 D becoming the E 250 Diesel for example.
Sedan (W124), Coupé (C124), Convertible (A124) and Estate (S124) body configurations were offered.
New Brighton Park,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Created from RAW data of Spitzer Space Telescope.
Channels: 3.6,4.5 and 8 microns
The Hot regions are represented in blue. Some blue stars can also be seen.
The Outer region of the galaxy is seen in Red, but is relatively cooler than the core region. Some background stars are Red in color and is relatively cooler than other stars.
The Blueish core, suggest that it a relatively hot and surrounded by hot clouds. Research shows that it host a SMB and thus have such high emission in IR spectrum.
The Structure of the galaxy is also clearly visible in the image .
Credits: Bipradeep Saha/NASA
Post-processing : Mopex/ Pixinsight
RA: 12h 39m 59.4s, Dec: −11° 37′ 23″
The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as Messier 104, M104 or NGC 4594) is a peculiar galaxy of unclear classification in the constellation borders of Virgo and Corvus. It is located approximately 31.1 million light-years from the Milky Way.
The galaxy's most striking feature is the dust lane that crosses in front of the bulge of the galaxy. This dust lane is actually a symmetrical ring that encloses the bulge. The centre of the galaxy is believed to comprise a supermassive blackhole (~1 billion Solar masses).
Source: Wikipedia
OTA: AG Optical 20" f/6.7 Imaging Dall-Kirkham (iDK) (Remote Skygems Observatory, Hakos, Namibia)
Camera: FLI Proline 16803 (16 MP)
Pixel Size: 9.0 x 9.0 micron
Image Scale (1x1): arcsec/pixel
FOV:
Mount: Planewave L-500
Guiding: Unknown
Total integration time: 10 hr 0 min
Subs:
31 x 300 sec LUMINANCE (bin x1)
30 x 300 sec RED (bin x1)
30 x 300 sec GREEN (bin x1)
29 x 300 sec BLUE (bin x1)
Data acquisition: 11th - 19th June 2023 (Insight Observatory)
Starbase dataset: M104 - LRGB (2023)
Calibration, alignment & integration: PixInsight
Post-processing: Photoshop & PSP2019
M104 Edge on Spiral Galaxy
The Sombrero Galaxy aka Messier Object 104, M104 or NGC 4594 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo located 28 million light-years or 8.6 Mega-parsecs 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. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of +9.0, making it easily visible with amateur telescopes, Based on its brightness & distance, it's considered by some Astronomers to be the brightest galaxy within a radius of 10 Mega-parsecs of the Milky Way. In the large central bulge, the central super-massive black hole, and the dust lane attract the attention of professional astronomers. It was nicknamed the Sombrero Galaxy as visually through the telescope it resembles a Mexican Sombrero! This is a 18 x 5 minute subs, 90 Minute total exposure with a QHY8 CCD camera and my home made 16" Newt. scope. Despite the heavy moisture and being low on the horizon at my site, it turned out okay.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation.
This galaxy was taken with a Takahashi FS-128 mm refractor with a QSI 583 camera. Unfortunately I got mixed up with my RGB and was left with two sets of G data but no B data! So here's my Sombrero using just the luminance. Sorry, yet another work-in-progress!
As the galaxy's apparent size is rather small with my telescope, I gave it severe, 100% cropping.
9x6min for Luminance using Astrodon filters.
Mount: Astro-Physics 1100gto
Location: LMDSS, Heathcote, Victoria, Australia
Camera: QSI583
Camera cooling: -30c
Image scale 1.07"/pix
La lumière de cette galaxie date d'il y a 28 millions d'années, quand les premiers primates supérieurs apparaissaient en Afrique.
Sony A7M3 + Sigma 150/600 FD 6.3 sur Star adventurer.
21 poses de 20s à 600mm f/6.3 ISO 3200 + 10 dark flat offset. Empilement avec Siril.
Try as I might I can't get this one right - washed out by moonlight, try again another night.
Canon 550D, 30 1 minute exposures, ISO 800
Sky-Watcher Quattro 8CF ( 800mm f/4 )
x3 Dithering in DeepSkyStacker.
M104, i.e Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo , located
Data- HST, NASA/ESA
Post Processing;- Bipradeep Saha (www.instagram.com/sparxastronomy)
9.55MPc(31,100,000 LY) from earth.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 the Spitzer space telescope found that the halo around the Sombrero Galaxy is larger and more massive than previously thought, indicative of a giant elliptical galaxy.
In the 1990s, a research group led by John Kormendy demonstrated that a supermassive black hole is present within the Sombrero Galaxy.
The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in Virgo viewed almost edge on. It features a prominent dust lane and halo of stars suggestive of its namesake. It's only 9x4 arc minutes in apparent size, so it is a bit of a stretch for my focal length of 250 mm. Transparency was poor Friday night with high thin clouds and dust in Fort Davis. Imaging time was limited to just over two hours, 25 five minute exposures starting 2022-04-30 05:48 UT.
Imaged with a William Optics RedCat 250/51mm telescope, Baader UV/IR cut filter, ZWO ASI 533 MC camera, and SkyWatcher AZ-EQ5 mount, ASI EAF and guide camera. All were controlled with a ZWO ASIAir Plus Controller.
Processed with BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, and StarXTerminator plugins in Pixinsight. Fnal crop and exposure adjustment in Photoshop.
30 minutes of 60s exposures on M104 with the Stellarvue 90mm and ATF2 on a iOptron ZEQ25 mount. Nikon D5100 w/Baader Clear Focus filter. No guiding.
Stacked in DSS, processed and cropped in CS5, noise removal w/Noiseware Communtiy Edition.
Imaged 17 Apr 2013.
Brand new Stagecoach South Coast Buses Dennis Javelin Plaxton Interurban 1104 (M104 CCD) in Brighton on 8th January, 1995. The batch would only stay in Sussex for a few months.
20150510-M104-LRGB-st
Constellation Virgo
QHY9S-M mono CCD camera
Astronomic LRGB filter set
Celestron CPC925
6 ten minute Lum + 6 five minute R, G, B (bin 2x2) exposures
Stacked with Deepsky Stacker
LRGB Processed with StarTools
Final tweak in Gimp
-Object Info-
Name: M104
Other names: Sombrero Galaxy, NGC4594
Type: Spiral Galaxy
Mag: 8.00
-Image Info-
Date: April 8, 2010
Location: Florida Tech, Melbourne, FL
Telescope: Ortega .8m
Imager: FLI 1024x1024
CCD Temp: -20 C
Filters: Clear
Exposure: 10 210s
Total Time: 35min
Processing: IRAF, Maxim DL, CCDSharp, Photoshop
In the image North is up and East is to the left.
Credit: Don Schumacher, Akeem Wells
86th Street Subway, NYC
by navema
Artist Nitza Tufino in collaboration with Grosvenor House students. Glazed ceramic tiles depicting neighborhood scenes, located along the platform walls (pictured here: Lincoln Center).
The 86th Street subway station is the permanent home of 37 ceramic murals, mounted more than 20 years ago, in August of 1989, on the walls of the platform. Scenes include subway riders boarding a red No. 2 express train at the 96th Street station, the 72nd Street station, two Hasidic men pushing pink baby strollers in front of a Chinese restaurant, two old people inching their way towards an M104 bus, medians on Broadway, Lincoln Center, the Hayden Planetarium, FDNY, kids at play, the Ida Straus memorial in Straus Park, boats at the 79th Street Boat Basin, the New York Buddhist Church street vendors, and a New York City Bus, amongst others. A poem entitled West Side Views by student Pedro Pieti is also featured.
Most of the young people who created them were troubled or struggling students trying to earn their high school equivalency degree. A community art project that left a lasting impression on the students lives, for some of the students it was a turning point. “When I see it now, I see all the love that I put in that work,” said Leeama Scott, 44, who was a young immigrant from Trinidad when she worked on the murals. Guy Monpremier, 43, came to the United States in 1985 to escape political turmoil and violence in his native Haiti. For him and others, the mural project was a chance to explore the world beyond his immediate environment. At the time, he was attending high school equivalency classes at Grosvenor Neighborhood House, a settlement house on West 105th Street.
Grosvenor, an urban refuge of social service and education programs housed in a bleak rectangular structure that looks more like a compact jail, had been brought into discussions over how to spend $205,000 in amenity financing that had been promised by a developer constructing a high-rise condominium at 84th Street and Broadway. Some of the money went toward the project, which paid for materials and a $4-an-hour stipend for the 17 students who participated.
Carrying 35-millimeter cameras, Mr. Monpremier and the others were dispatched throughout the two-square-mile neighborhood to capture images of landmarks and typical urban scenes. The negatives of the best scenes were then made into slides, and the images projected onto a wall, where they were traced onto paper. These drawings were transferred in reverse onto 23-by-30-inch linoleum sheets that were then stamped onto large sheets of clay. The large clay images were cut into pieces small enough to fit into kilns and fired, then painted with colored glaze, put back together like puzzle pieces, then finally mounted onto large frames. Mr. Monpremier, like a number of students involved in the project, had plans to study the arts afterward. He attended Manhattan Community College for a time, but his studies were cut short. He is now director of security for a commercial real estate firm and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. His contributions to the murals included a Broadway island bench scene, one of two older people getting on the bus and a street-corner view of Grosvenor.
Clarisa Ureña started having children when she was 19, three years after she moved out of her parents’ home. She had two by the time she got involved with the mural project. While Ms. Ureña studied for her high school equivalency exam, her children attended a day care program at Grosvenor. In the afternoons, she labored over a classic scene, the Lincoln Center fountain plaza. She lived one block away, on 106th Street, and Grosvenor had long been a part of her life.“We had a responsibility, and if you didn’t meet the criteria, you were out,” Ms. Ureña said of herself and the other students. “I was not the kind of person who could sit around the apartment.”
Her roles as wife, cook and mother supplanted her early interest in education, until the mural project came along. Ms. Ureña, who moved to Garner, N.C., about four years ago, said the project motivated her to go to college. She studied computer graphics and advertising at Bronx Community College, and after having a third child in the early 1990s, she received a bachelor’s degree in art education from City College. For a brief time she taught art to elementary schoolchildren in the South Bronx. In North Carolina, she works for Wake County’s food stamps program.
Mrs. Scott, then Leeama Blugh, attended equivalency classes at Grosvenor during the day and in the evening worked there as an assistant, helping younger children with their homework. She said the project had so inspired her that she thought seriously of pursuing a career in the arts. But her life took different turns. She attended beauty school and worked at various beauty salons in the city. Over the years, she has worked as a home attendant and an office worker on Wall Street. She now works in security. Mrs. Scott said she had no regrets that her dreams of becoming an artist had faded. “When I look back and see all these things that I did, it makes me feel good,” she said.
Original plans for the mural project called for a less significant role for the students. A professional artist would design the work and hire students to do the manual labor, said Nitza Tufiño, 59, the artist who directed the project and taught the students how to make the tiles. Ms. Tufiño, the daughter of Rafael Tufiño, a prominent Puerto Rican painter and printmaker who died in 2008, said she viewed the project as an instrument for social change. Having the students work on an assembly line for another artist, for $4 an hour, would have had little impact on their lives, she said. “How can you ask a young man, who could have $1,000 in his pocket selling drugs, to manufacture plaques that were created by someone else?” Ms. Tufiño said. “Think about what you’re competing against in el barrio.”
Inside her home in South Orange, N.J., Ms. Tufiño has kept dozens of black and white photographs, contact sheets, negatives and slides documenting the mural project. Many of the photos show the students in the Grosvenor workshop, a space no larger than a public school bathroom, drawing, rolling clay and carving linoleum.
Twenty years ago, Sandra Bloodworth, director of the Arts for Transit program, was new to the transportation agency, and the mural project was her first assignment as a supervisor. “It’s amazing that it’s had such timelessness,” Ms. Bloodworth said. “No one thought anything like that would last. People thought it would be destroyed in a week.”
On a recent visit to the station, with Kim Ferguson and Lisa Branch, two participants who have remained close friends to this day, Ms. Tufiño reflected on the project. “You know what’s weird?” Ms. Ferguson said as she walked down the platform, pointing to murals she worked on. “I still remember how to do the whole thing.” Ms. Ferguson worked on the mural depicting commuters boarding the No. 2 train at 96th Street. In another mural, this one made by Ms. Branch, Ms. Ferguson is shown sitting next to two children on a brownstone stoop, wearing a yellow jumpsuit. Ms. Ferguson, 41, is now a community organizer for the New York City Mission Society’s Minisink Townhouse in Harlem. She said the work she does today is a continuation of the help given to her at a critical time in her life. Ms. Branch, 40, gave birth to her first child, Timothy in 2008, and worked as a receptionist for Bear Stearns through a temp agency.
She brought Timothy along for the station visit, dutifully covering his ears every time a train roared past. In an interview before the visit, Ms. Branch said she had recently seen the tile murals from a passing No. 2 train. “I said, ‘Wow, 20 years later and they’re still beautiful, just like when we put them up there,’ ” she said. “That’s something to show my son when he’s of the age to know what that is. So I can say, ‘Look, your mommy did that.’ ”
ABOUT NITZA TUFINO
An artist since her early teens, Nitza Tufino was trained first in Puerto Rico in the graphic arts, at the side of her father, and later in Mexico as a muralist. Over the past two decades, her dedication and talent have been acknowledged in several public commissions. As a woman in a field traditionally dominated by males, Tufino often found herself in a difficult, yet exciting pioneering role. Her profound connection to the urban Latino population whose themes and concerns have been her primary inspiration as an artist, as well as her love of teaching, particularly of young people, have strengthened her throughout. Tufino's first mural commission, for El Museo del Barrio in 1973, was a proud affirmation of the Afro-Caribbean roots of the Puerto Rican people. She has also completed a mural at the 103rd Street Subway Station for the MTA Arts for Transit Program.
ARTIST QUOTE...
“As an artist, if I take my brushes and my skills and I invest in the lives of young people, then others can see what is possible. Maybe it will inspire other artists to share their time. I want the art work to continue and not to die ... this is highly political to have young people lead ... we need a chain that grows ... I believe human beings can do anything, if we find something that would positively influence them.” -- Tufino, 1990
Using a NEX-5 mounted to a C8 OTA, f/6.3 reducer, CG-5GT mount. Guided with a Orion SSAG and 50mm guidescope piggybacked on the C8.
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. 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.