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public  Greenwich, UK Greenwich, UK  ⓘ
TimezoneEurope/London
Sunrise: 7:21 
Transit: 12:14 
Sunset: 17:07
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All Constellations »  Corvus »  Deep Sky Objects » 

Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus

Below the horizon.  Rise: 22:13 | Tran: 3:15 | Set: 8:13
Alt: -37.10°   Az: 302.67°   Direction: West-North-West

Messier 104 is a Spiral Galaxy in the Corvus constellation. Messier 104 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year. Given its visual magnitude of 8, Messier 104 is visible with the help of a binocular with a 40-50mm aperture or a small telescope.

The image below is a photograph of Messier 104 from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2 - see the credits section) taken in the red channel. The area of sky represented in the image is 0.5000x0.5000 degrees (30.00x30.00 arcmins).

Image of Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus star
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DSS2 image of Messier 104 in the Red band. The green region on the image is a representation of the major (8.45 arcmin) and minor (4.91 arcmin) axes of the object's apparent size.

Celestial Coordinates

Apparent

12h 41m 17s
-11° 45’ 38”
09h 06m 49s
21h 48m 06s

J2000

12h 39m 59s
-11° 37’ 23”

Finder Chart

The simplified sky charts below show the position of Messier 104 in the sky. The first chart has a field of view of 60° while the second one has a field of view of 10°.

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Finder chart for Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus.

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Finder chart for Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus.

Photometric Information

The following table lists the magnitude of Messier 104 in different bands of the electomagnetic spectrum (when available), from the B band (445nm wavelength, corresponding to the Blue color), to the V band ( 551nm wavelength, corresponding to Green/Yellow color), to the J, H, K bands (corresponding to 1220nm, 1630nm, 2190nm wavelengths respectively, which are colors not visible to the human eye).

9.55
8
5.89
5.21
4.96

For more information about photometry in astronomy, check the photometric system article on Wikipedia.

The surface brightess reported below is an indication of the brightness per unit of angular area of Messier 104.

22.26 mag/arcsec2

Apparent Size

The following table reports Messier 104 apparent angular size. The green area displayed on top of the DSS2 image of Messier 104 is a visual representation of it.
8.45 arcmin
4.91 arcmin
90°

Morphological Classification

Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus is classified as Spiral (SAa) according to the Hubble and de Vaucouleurs galaxy morphological classification. The diagram below shows a visual representation of the position of Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus in the Hubble de Vaucouleurs sequence.

Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus
Visualization of the morphological classification of Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus, Spiral (SAa).
Credits for the background image: Antonio Ciccolella / M. De Leo / CC BY

Rise and Set Times

Location: Greenwich, UK
Latitude: 51° 28’ 47” N
Longitude: 0° 00’ 00” E
Timezone: Europe/London

Today's Messier 104 (Sombrero Galaxy) - Spiral Galaxy in Corvus rise, transit and set times from Greenwich, UK are the following (all times relative to the local timezone Europe/London):

Azimuth: 101.8°
Max altitude: 26.8°
Azimuth: 258.2°