Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  IC 2763  ·  M 65  ·  M 66  ·  NGC 3623  ·  NGC 3627  ·  NGC 3628
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Leo Triplet, Johannes Bock
Leo Triplet
Powered byPixInsight

Leo Triplet

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Leo Triplet, Johannes Bock
Leo Triplet
Powered byPixInsight

Leo Triplet

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

At a distance of 35 million light-years, the apparent separation between M 65 and M 66 corresponds to a distance of 190,000 light years. Their true separation is no doubt considerably greater, because it is unlikely that both galaxies lie at the same distance from us. M66 has an absolute magnitude of -21, a luminosity of 21 billion suns, and a true diameter of at least 75,000 light years.

Messier 66 has a well-developed central bulge, and is classified as type Sb. Its spiral arms are obviously deformed, probably due to encounters with its neighbors. They seem to be distorted, and displaced above the plane of the galaxy. Much dust is visible, as well as a few pink nebulae - signs of star formation - near the end of one of the arms. Gravitational interaction from its past encounter with neighboring NGC 3628 has resulted in an extremely high central mass concentration, and a clump of atomic hydrogen gas that has apparently been removed from one of the spiral arms.

Comments

Revisions

  • Leo Triplet, Johannes Bock
    Original
  • Final
    Leo Triplet, Johannes Bock
    B

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Leo Triplet, Johannes Bock

In these public groups

Cloudy Nights