Categories: Astrophotosgalaxies

Astrophoto: Awesome Views of a Sombrero in Space

A lovely view of the Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo. Taken remotely from Siding Spring Observatory, Australia during several nights in April. Credit and copyright: Ian Sharp.

Here’s a wonderful view of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104, NGC 4594) in Virgo. This multi-hour, deep exposure was taken remotely by astrophotographer Ian Sharp from the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia over the past few weeks, with 12 hours of Luminance and 5 hours each on R, G and B channels.

The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy that we see edge-on from Earth. Its outer dust lanes and bright central bulge aare visible in this wonderful image. There’s a zoomed out version, below, and you can see more of Ian Sharp’s great imagery at his website.

A expanded view of M104, the Sombrero Galaxy and the surrounding region. Credit and copyright: Ian Sharp.

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Here are the details of the equipment Ian Sharp used to take these images:

Optical Tube Assembly RCOS 12.5” F/9 (2857mm focal length) Carbon-Fibre Tube w/TCC2, PIR and FFC
Equatorial Mount Bisque Paramount ME
Imaging Camera Apogee F16M-D9 (KAF-16803) with 7 slot filter wheel
Imaging Camera Filters Astrodon Series II L,R,G,B, Ha (5nm), OIII (3nm) and SII (3nm)
Guide Camera MMOAG with SBIG ST-402ME
The system delivers a 44×44 arcmin FoV operating at .65 arcsec/pixel
Processed entirely in PixInsight.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/