Astrophoto: Awesome Views of a Sombrero in Space

By Nancy Atkinson - May 01, 2014 11:45 AM UTC | Extragalactic

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

.

[caption id="attachment_111623" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

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

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 44x44 arcmin FoV operating at .65 arcsec/pixel
Processed entirely in PixInsight.

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you're giving us permission to post them). Please explain what's in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com