M104: The Sombrero Galaxy

The striking spiral Galaxy M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring Dust lanes.

Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of Cosmic Dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the Galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, The Sombrero Galaxy.

Hubble Image data have been used to create this sharp view of the well-known Galaxy. The processing results in a natural color appearance and preserves details often lost in overwhelming glare of M104’s bright central bulge when viewed with smaller ground-based telescopes.

Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero Galaxy can be seen across the spectrum and is host to a central supermassive Black Hole.

About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.

This image can be tagged with Deep Space, Astrophotography and Astronomical Wonders and Distant Worlds.