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| The Sombrero Galaxy (Messier 104) was obtained with FORS1 multi-mode instrument at VLT ANTU on January 30, 2000. It is a composite of three exposures in different wavebands, cf. the technical note below. This photo shows the eastern area, with the pronounced dust bands and many background galaxies. North is up and East is left. | |
In addition to their scientific value, many of the exposures now being obtained by visiting astronomers to ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) are also very beautiful. This is certainly true for this new image of the famous early-type spiral galaxy Messier 104, widely known as the "Sombrero" (the Mexican hat) because of its particular shape.
The colour image was made by a combination of three CCD images from the FORS1 multi-mode instrument on VLT ANTU, recently obtained by Peter Barthel from the Kapteyn Institute (Groningen, The Netherlands) during an observing run at the Paranal Observatory. He and Mark Neeser, also from the Kapteyn Institute, produced the composite images.
The galaxy fits perfectly into the 6.8 x 6.8 arcmin2 field-of-view of the FORS1 camera. A great amount of fine detail is revealed, from the structures in the pronounced dust band in the equatorial plane, to many faint background galaxies that shine through the outer regions.
The "Sombrero" is located in the constellation Virgo (The Virgin), at a distance of about 50 million light-years. The overall "sharpness" of this colour image corresponds to about 0.7 arcsec which translates into a resolution of about 170 light-years at that distance.