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Top, Hubble image, bottom amateur image of Messier 104. The Hubble image image appears like a dusty disk tilted slightly to the right. The disk has a bright-white center and a large spherical glowing halo that extends beyond the dusty disk. The bottom, amateur image, is tilted at the same angle, but the galaxy is much smaller and the halo isn't as bright in this image.

Messier 104: Amateur Image vs. Hubble Image

Messier 104 (M104), better known as the Sombrero Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy some 28 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. The top image was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The bottom image was taken with an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope using a 0.63x focal reducer and a DSLR Camera. The Hubble image of M104 is one of the largest mosaics ever assembled from Hubble observations.

Image Credit: Hubble Image: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Amateur Image: Photographed by and used with permission of K. Hartnett
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Image CreditHubble Image: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Amateur Image: Photographed by and used with permission of K. Hartnett
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