Globular clusters in the Sombrero Galaxy

[strongmanmike]

Well, some have wondered about the globular clusters in the halo of M104 and whether a 6" can pick them up.

Using data extracted from Aladin and Simbad software and compiled by Jean-Baptiste Gordien, we have a clear answer...YES! :D

The faintest marked globular is nearly V mag 21, if the seeing had been better on the night the mind boggles! :eyepop:

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125755939/original

Mike

[Tom Davis]

Cool!! Oh, and great image.

Tom

[Dennis]

Wow - impressive stuff Mike! Watsup – did you get bored with our own Milky Way?? LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[JD2439975]

Infested with globbies...eww, nice one.

[dcalleja]

Thats pretty amazing. Did it take you long to map the clusters against the Aladin DB?

[gregbradley]

That's amazing Mike.

Greg.

[SkyViking]

That's some extreme imaging Mike, I like it! Well done and thanks for sharing.
I notice you've also got the distant double spiral twins visible under M104, directly behind the "21" in your labelled image. I'm not sure how distant they are, haven't been able to find any literature about them but I always check for them in M104 images. Here they are in a HST shot: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/fap/image/0601/sombrero_hst_big.jpg (close to the bottom, 1/3 of the way from the left).

[Phil Hart]

yikes.. just another 'amateur' image eh.. congrats on putting the hard work in to identify all those suckers and demonstrate what an amazing image it is!

[taxman]

Just amazing - makes you ponder what our galaxy looks like from theirs...

[renormalised]

Yep....tad over 2000 GC's around 104. Nice shot there, Mike.

A 6" with a good camera should be able to pick up the globs. Your previous images of the galaxy show them:)

[Ric]

That's an awesome image Mike.

I also liked the two images 26 years apart in your gallery as well. That was amazing as well. I couldn't quite tell but were you wearing flairs?

Cheers

[starfinder]

Fantastic effort Mike. Thanks for taking the time to identify them and for sharing your results. Demonstrates again the immense power of amateur astrophotography with quality equipment to go real deep.

As a measure of how far technology has come I doubt that 20 years ago the Mt Palomar 200" using the best hypered film technology could go much deeper than you've done.

I wonder what the night sky would look like from inside M104 with that very dusty plane, large central bulge and thousands of globulars dotted about? Aaaaaaaah!

[strongmanmike]

Glad you liked it guys :thumbsup:

If I recollect correctly the Palomar 48" Schmidt Sky Survey at best went to Mag 22.

Mike