The Leo Triplet of Galaxies

 

Object

This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet - a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these galaxies can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (top), M66 (bottom left), and M65 (bottom right). All three are large spiral galaxies. They tend to look dissimilar because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628 is seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across the plane of the galaxy, while the disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have also left telltale signs, including the warped and inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous deep view of the region spans about one degree (two full moons) on the sky. The field covers over 500 thousand light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million light-years.

Camera CCD-Labs Q453HR
Pixel size:

Square 7.8um x 7.8um

Image format:

3032(h) x 2016(v) ~ 6.11M pixels

Image Area:

23.4mm(h) x 15.6mm(v) APS film equivalent

Equipment Orion Atlas Mount, EQMOD, Vixen ED130SS fl 860mm, William Optics 70mm Guidescope, Orion SS Autoguider
Date & Place April 17th Mt Pinos Calif.
Exposure &
Processing
 6x20min exposures Captured with MaxIm, Stacked with Deepsky Stacker, Background and color correction in CCDStack, Finished with Photoshop CS3 using Skytools 6.1