M104 Sombrero Galaxy widefield

Image Title: M104 Sombrero Galaxy widefield

Copyright: Davide Nardulli:

Date image was taken: April 06, 0202

Location: Palazzo S. Spirito , Stigliano (MT) Italy

Image Description and Details: M104 is also known as NGC 4594 or Sombrero Galaxy, its flattened shape and very pronounced nucleus make it similar to the well-known Mexican headdress. The galaxy is not easy to identify, the cause is the absence of bright stars in its vicinity, it can be identified at about 9° west of Spica, the alpha star of the Constellation of Virgo. It is about 29 million light years away from us, its diameter is uncertain, estimates vary from 50,000 to 140,000 light years, its mass is equal to 800 billion solar masses.
The galaxy is full of globular clusters, the Hubble telescope identified around 2000 of them, 10 times more than those present in the Milky Way, the age of these clusters ranges from 10 to 13 billion years, similar age to those belonging to our galaxy . At the center of M104 there is strong x-ray emission, which suggests there is material falling into its compact core, estimated at 1 billion solar masses, where a supermassive black hole resides.
Observable from both terrestrial hemispheres, the best period for its observation is between March and July. The first to discover it was Pierre Méchain in 1783 considering it a nebula, in 1912 Vesto Slipher, measured the shift towards the red of the frequency of the light emitted by M104, corresponding to a speed of departure of approximately 1100 km/sec, the estimate of the distance and consequently its size grew considerably and people began to suspect that it was not an object inside the Milky Way, but another galaxy.
Filmed on Saturday 6 April at Palazzo S. Spirito in Stigliano (MT) for 7 hours with LRGB broadband filters.

Equipment Details: technical data and tools
light : L : 100x180s bin1 , RGB : 45x180s. bin2
data acquisition: Asi Air Plus
telescope: Skywatcher Newton 250/1000
main chamber: Asi 2600 MM pro
guide: Oag-L + Asi 290 MM mini
filter wheel: Efw 7x2
focuser: Eaf 5v
mount: Skywatcher EQ6R-pro
processing: Dss, PixInsight and Photoshop
Bortle 4, sqm 21.24 Stigliano

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