B Looking for info about the Sombrero Galaxy

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Hi, I saw someone with an avatar on a different forum that turns out to be the sombrero galaxy.

AI says, too distant to know much about, aside from billions of starts, potentially tons of planets, and a supermassive black hole in the center.

I find that setup fascinating, despite knowing close to nothing about the universe.

So I ask: could anyone point me in the direction of, or provide information about this galaxy?

I do not trust AI beyond general information, and I like to go pretty deep into it.
 
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You can try a search on Messier 104, it's astronomical designation.
It has a wiki page.
As you likely already know, it about 30,000,000 light-years way and is slightly larger than our own galaxy.
 
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.Scott said:
You can try a search on Messier 104, it's astronomical designation.
It has a wiki page.
As you likely already know, it about 30,000,000 light-years way and is slightly larger than our own galaxy.

That's a crazy distance. Amazing that it can be seen from here.
 
mayflowers said:
That's a crazy distance. Amazing that it can be seen from here.
It's also crazy big.
In the night sky, it is magnitude +8.0. So, you would need (at least) binoculars to see it.
 
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.Scott said:
It's also crazy big.
Yeah, it's 9 arcmin wide, nearly a third the size of the full moon in the sky. So we'd be able to see it's if it were brighter.
 
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So Wikipedia didn't mention: how might the black hole in the center affect the galaxy? And the brightness and size.. is there anything about the star system and formation that allows all these things to happen in conjunction?

Id love to take a look at what the planets looked like in this galaxy.. imagine if they were rock with water, and instead of following the gravitational pull of the sun you're rotating around a black hole 👀
 
mayflowers said:
So Wikipedia didn't mention: how might the black hole in the center affect the galaxy? And the brightness and size.. is there anything about the star system and formation that allows all these things to happen in conjunction?

Id love to take a look at what the planets looked like in this galaxy.. imagine if they were rock with water, and instead of following the gravitational pull of the sun you're rotating around a black hole 👀
A planet that orbits a black hole without also orbiting a star would be missing that nice steady warmth and glow of a sun that continues on for millions or billions of years. It would not be a likely candidate for life. As long as it stayed well away from the black hole, it would stay frozen. Geothermal conditions might exist - like the occasional volcano or quake. There could be occasional meteor activity. But really, for the most part, a rather dull (and dark) vacation spot.

Our galaxy likely contains many rogue planets - all of which would be orbiting our galactic center and therefore also the black hole at Sagittarius A*. So they would meet your description. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to launch in a couple of years to look for them.
 
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Basically all large galaxies have super-massive black holes in the center. It's thought that the galaxy and black hole grow up together. Our own is call Sagittarius-A* and it weighs more than 4,000,000 times the mass of the sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*
 
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A little here but there is more info in the wiki page

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hu...night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-104/

A few images here on PF too.

 
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pinball1970 said:
That Hubble photo shows some serious gray-scale contouring. This happens when the brightness/contrast is set to highlight a limited number of available gray-scale levels. In this case, moving outward from the pole (upward from the top pole), there are only about 10 gray scale levels available from the core (set to render white) and the space in the background (black).

I suspect this gray-scale resolution limit is from the Hubble image collection itself - and not from post processing. It could be corrected by increasing the exposure time - say by a factor of 5. But since it's the Hubble, at least we wouldn't have to compete with 78,000 hours of annual tasking.

There is also contouring on the Webb image - but because there are no large-area brightness gradients on the image content (at least not as large as with the Hubble image), they are not as obvious.
 
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