Dustbands in the Sombrero Galaxy

It is possible to follow the spiral structure of the Sombrero Galaxy almost all the way round. The dark areas around the stars and galaxies in the field are artefacts of the image processing. This galaxy is notable for its dominant nuclear bulge, composed primarily of mature stars, and its nearly edge-on disk composed of stars, gas, and intricately structured dust. The complexity of this dust, and the high resolution of this image, is most apparent directly in front of the bright nucleus, but is also very evident as dark absorbing lanes throughout the disk. A significant fraction of the galaxy disk is even visible on the far side of the source, despite its massive bulge.

Technical information : The image has been processed to show the numerous dust bands in the central plane. It was made by dividing the V-band image by itself smoothed with a 2D gaussian profile (sigma: 10 pix); this removes the uniform areas and enhances the high spatial frequency features, e.g. the dust bands. Image processing by Mark Neeser (Kapteyn Institute, Groningen) and Richard Hook (ST/ECF, Garching, Germany).

Herkunftsnachweis:

ESO/P. Barthel

Über das Bild

ID:eso0007c
Typ:Beobachtung
Veröffentlichungsdatum:23. Februar 2000
Dazugehörige Veröffentlichungen:eso0007
Größe:2028 x 1324 px

Über das Objekt

Name:M 104, Messier 104, Sombrero Galaxy
Typ:Local Universe : Galaxy : Component : Bulge
Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Entfernung:35 Million Lichtjahre
Constellation:Virgo
Kategorie:Galaxies

Bildformate

Großes JPEG
1,6 MB

Bildschirm-Hintergrundbilder

1024x768
454,2 KB
1280x1024
760,2 KB
1600x1200
1,1 MB
1920x1200
1,3 MB
2048x1536
1,7 MB

Koordinaten

Position (RA):12 39 58.80
Position (Dec):-11° 37' 17.03"
Field of view:6.77 x 4.42 arcminutes
Orientierung:Die Nordrichtung liegt 0.1° rechts zur Vertikale

Farben & Filter

SpektralbereichWellenlängeTeleskop
Optisch
V
554 nmVery Large Telescope
FORS1