M104 The Sombrero Galaxy

The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M104 or NGC 4594) is a peculiar galaxy with stunning features - a bright nucleus enshrouded by an enormous central bulge and a striking dust ring. Viewing from an almost edge-on angle, the galaxy looks like a shining sombrero floating in space.

The dust ring is highly symmetrical and contains most of the galaxy's cold molecular gas. Some hypothesize that an elliptical galaxy collided with a disk galaxy billions of years ago, creating this jaw-dropping maverick.

Sombrero is a member of "Virgo II Groups", a band of more than 100 galactic clusters and individual galaxies stretching across the night sky. Many galaxies can be found in this image hiding among the stars: some are spiral, some are elliptical, and most are millions of light-years away.

(The original data was acquired from Telescope Live, which I processed using pixinsight and photoshop).