M104 · Seestar S30 · 2026-04-09

Messier 104, the Sombrero Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy of somewhat ambiguous classification straddling the Virgo/Corvus border, often described as intermediate between a spiral and a lenticular galaxy. It lies at a distance of roughly 30 million light-years (estimates commonly range from 28-31 million). Its defining features are an unusually large central bulge, a very bright nucleus (host to a supermassive black hole of roughly a billion solar masses), and a prominent, sharply defined dust lane crossing in front of the disk, which together give it its hat-like silhouette when viewed nearly edge-on. Its high surface brightness makes it a rewarding target even in shorter broadband exposures, though its relatively small apparent size calls for higher magnification/longer focal lengths to resolve the dust lane and bulge structure clearly.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sombrero_Galaxy]

Annotated Image

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Sky Location

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Image Details

PixInsight Processing

1. Drizzle Integration (x3)
2. Image Integration
3. Background Neutralization
4. Dynamic Background Extraction
5. Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
6. NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise)
7. Multiscale Adaptive Stretch
8. BlurXTerminator (AI deconvolution)
9. Curves Transformation