M104 - Sombrero Galaxy

Location: Warrumbungle Observatory, Australia (149 11 E, 31 16 S)

Date: Various dates in April 2012

Camera: QHY-9 and QHY filters

Telescope: William Optics M120

Frames: Twelve 10 minute luminance frames and twelve 300 second exposures for each of RGB.

Processing: Stacked in CCDStack, balanced, curves, highlights, sharpening and colour correction in Photoshope CS5

Text from APOD: What's going on in the center of this spiral galaxy? Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance, M104 features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and globular clusters. Something truly energetic is going on in the Sombrero's center, as it not only appears bright in visible light, but glows prodigiously in X-ray light as well. This X-ray emission coupled with unusually high central stellar speeds cause many astronomers to speculate that a black hole lies at the Sombrero's center - a black hole possibly a billion times the mass of our Sun.