Ugh... the best possible topic at the worst possible time. It would ordinarily be easy for me to shoot a picturesque sprial galaxy, but we've had awful weather for weeks, and the only clear night happened to be right before the full moon which washes out galaxies. The Sombrero Galaxy is not very good for showing detail, but the "best" targets were positioned where I couldn't shoot them, and we haven't had a clear night since then.
This particular galaxy is about 30 million light years away and has a billion solar mass supermassive black hole at its center. It's exactly the sort of environment Hawking devoted his life to studying.
The photo consists of 111 frames at 75 seconds each, shot through a 16" SCT telescope and stacked/processed in Pixinsight. It took me until nearly 4am to capture it, and while I wouldn't usually enter such a "blah" astrophoto, BearMusic double dog dared me to go for this challenge, and it's the only opportunity I could get.
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Never say never. The Andromeda Galaxy covers five times the area of the moon in the sky, and I've shot that with a 200mm lens. You could do it with enough determination.
Never say never. The Andromeda Galaxy covers five times the area of the moon in the sky, and I've shot that with a 200mm lens. You could do it with enough determination.
The Sombrero Galaxy: a black hole at heart
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