We have obtained intermediate-resolution VLT spectroscopy of 75 globular cluster candidates around the Sa galaxy M 104 ( NGC 4594 ) .
Fifty-seven candidates out to \sim 40 kpc in the halo of the galaxy were confirmed to be bona-fide globular clusters , 27 of which are new .
A first analysis of the velocities provides only marginal evidence for rotation of the cluster system .
From H \beta line strengths , almost all of the clusters in our sample have ages that are consistent , within the errors , with Milky Way globular clusters .
Only a few clusters may be 1–2 Gyr old , and bulge and halo clusters appear coeval .
The absorption line indices follow the correlations established for the Milky Way clusters .
Metallicities are derived based upon new empirical calibrations with Galactic globular clusters taking into account the non-linear behavior of some indices ( e.g. , Mg2 ) .
Our sample of globular clusters in NGC 4594 spans a metallicity range of -2.13 < \mbox { [ Fe / H ] } < +0.26 dex , and the median metallicity of the system is [ Fe/H ] = -0.85 .
Thus , our data provide evidence that some of the clusters have super-solar metallicity .
Overall , the abundance distribution of the cluster system is consistent with a bimodal distribution with peaks at [ Fe/H ] \sim - 1.7 and -0.7 .
However , the radial change in the metallicity distribution of clusters may not be straightforwardly explained by a varying mixture of two sub-populations of red and blue clusters .