The Sombrero Galaxy

Eso_sombrero_1024

eso_sombrero December 3rd, 2009

Credit: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler and J.-E. Ovaldsen

One of most famous spiral galaxies is Messier 104, widely known as the "Sombrero" (the Mexican hat) because of its particular shape. It is located towards the constellation Virgo (the ‘virgin’), at a distance of about 30 million light-years and is the 104th object in the famous catalogue of deep-sky objects by French astronomer Charles Messier (1730 - 1817).This luminous and massive galaxy has a total mass of about 800 billion suns, and is notable for its dominant nuclear bulge, composed mainly of mature stars, and its nearly edge-on disc composed of stars, gas, and dust. The complexity of this dust is apparent directly in front of the bright nucleus, but is also evident in the dark absorbing lanes throughout the disc. A large number of small, diffuse objects can be seen as a swarm in the halo of Messier 104. Most of these are globular clusters, similar to those found in our own Milky Way, but Messier 104 has a much larger number of them. This galaxy also appears to host a supermassive black hole of about 1 billion solar masses, one of the most massive black holes measured in any nearby galaxy, and 250 times larger than the black hole in the Milky Way. Despite having such a massive black hole at its centre, the galaxy is rather quiet, implying that the black hole is on a very stringent diet.This image is based on data acquired with the 1.5 m Danish telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile, through three filters (B: 120 s, V: 100 s, R: 100 s).

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/sombrero/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 104 Sombrero Galaxy
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Galaxy > Activity > AGN
Eso_sombrero_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 39m 54.3s
DEC = -11° 38’ 4.0”
Orientation
North is 43.4° CCW
Field of View
12.3 x 11.9 arcminutes
Constellation
Virgo

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (R) -
Green ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (V) -
Blue ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (B) -
Eso_sombrero_1280
×
ID
sombrero
Subject Category
C.5.1.1   C.5.3.2  
Subject Name
Messier 104, Sombrero Galaxy
Credits
ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler and J.-E. Ovaldsen
Release Date
2009-12-03T23:19:50
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/sombrero/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from NED.
Facility
Danish 1.54-metre telescope, Danish 1.54-metre telescope, Danish 1.54-metre telescope
Instrument
None, None, None
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
R, V, B
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
189.976098017, -11.6344328644
Reference Dimension
1280.0, 1242.0
Reference Pixel
781.0, 661.0
Scale
-0.000160310562214, 0.000160310562214
Rotation
43.35888679038
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
sombrero
Metadata Date
2009-02-27T10:51:08+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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