Galaxy
Sombrero Galaxy (M104)
In Virgo (Vir) • Magnitude 9.0 • 8.7 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Sombrero Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
One of the most recognisable galaxies in the sky — a brilliant nuclear bulge bisected by a sweeping dark dust lane gives it the unmistakable silhouette of a wide-brimmed hat. Its central black hole weighs about 1 billion solar masses, and its unusually large bulge has led some astronomers to debate whether M104 is truly a spiral galaxy or secretly a giant elliptical in disguise.
Sombrero Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M104, N 4594 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Virgo (Vir) |
| Right ascension | 12h 40m 01s |
| Declination | -11° 37' 12" |
| Apparent magnitude | 8.98 |
| Surface brightness | 12.9 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 8.7 × 3.5 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 33° |
| Best imaging months | Dec, Jan, Feb |
How to image Sombrero Galaxy
Sombrero Galaxy sits in the constellation Virgo at right ascension 12h 40m 01s and declination -11° 37' 12". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.