Messier 104, the Sombrero Galaxy, is one of the classic spring galaxy targets and one of the most recognizable objects in the Messier catalog. Its bright central bulge, sharply defined dust lane, and nearly edge-on orientation give it the familiar “sombrero” profile. M104 lies in Virgo, near the border with Corvus, roughly 28–30 million light-years away.

This image was captured from Whispering Skies Observatory in Honeoye Falls, NY, using the Sharpstar SCA260 V2 and ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro. The final integration is 11 hours of LRGB data collected over three nights in April 2026: 193 × 90s luminance, 89 × 90s red, 80 × 90s green, and 78 × 90s blue, all at gain 0 and −15°C.

This was not one of my cleaner projects. Thin clouds, increasing atmospheric path length as the target moved west, larger-than-ideal stars, and some suspected dew or optical contamination all worked against the data. I culled aggressively through Blink and SubFrameSelector and still ended up with an image that I consider more of a learning project than a final-quality result.

The full project report, as well as a detailed and annotated processing walkthrough, can be seen here:

https://cosgrovescosmos.com/projects/m104-2026

I am posting this one because not every project lands where I want it to. M104 is a beautiful target, but this dataset showed me several things I need to address before the next attempt: optical cleaning, dew control around the secondary, and likely a careful collimation check afterward. The result is still “reasonable”, but also a good reminder that the weakest link in a project is not always exposure time.

Thanks for looking!

Clear Skies,

Pat