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M104, THE SOMBRERO GALAXY on 2025-04-06,07,08

M104, The Sombrero Galaxy, is a galaxy located in the constellation borders of Virgo and Corvus. It is about 31.1 million light-years from our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy. The Sombrero Galaxy is a member of the Virgo II Galaxy Groups, a series of galaxies and galaxy clusters strung out from the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. M104 is slightly bigger in size than our own Milky Way Galaxy. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its outer disk, which from the Earth is viewed almost edge-on. The dark dust lane and the bulge give it the appearance of a sombrero hat.

This photo was taken in Kyle, Texas through a 4.5-inch f/4 Telescope, on a ZWO AM5 Mount, with a ZWO ASI533MC PRO color camera. The processing was done in PixInsight. The total image acquisition time is: 2 hrs 13 min 00 sec.

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