Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628) (Alex Woronow)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Leo (Leo) · Contains: IC 2708 · IC 2745 · Leo Triplet · M 65 · M 66 · NGC 3623 · NGC 3627 · NGC 3628

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Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

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Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

OTA: Star-Fire 175 (f/8)

Camera: FLI - PL16070AE

Observatory: Deep Sky West

EXPOSURES:

Red: 24 x 900 seconds

Blue: 14 x 900

Green: 26 x 900

Lum.: 32 x 900

Total exposure 24 hours

Image Width: ~1.5 deg

Processed by Alex Woronow using PixInsight & StarNet++ in 2019

The “Leo Triplet” consists of the three spiral galaxies listed in the title. They lie about 35M light-years from us. These galaxies are mutually interacting, gravitationally, which likely accounts for the streamer of gas, dust, and/or stars trailing downward in this picture from the left-most galaxy, NGC 3628. NGC 3628 also exhibits obvious distortions from the archetypical lenticular profile of spiral galaxies, being flared at its extremities. Our edge-on view of NGC 3628 also shows a complexly structured medial band of dust and gas obscuring the stars in the plane of the galaxy. M 66 (left-most galaxy) shows a weak barred structure and has an unusually high proportion of its mass concentrated at its center. You should be able to see a faint bulge of material to its left--probably due to its gravitational interaction with NGC 3628. Finally, M 65 is poor in gas and dust (having been stripped in gravitational encounters, I expect) and consequently has little active star-formation (and a dearth of blue stars.)

(Source: largely Wikipedia)

The refractors!

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2646739
PixInsight job	DNN9W6BQM754LNUNDMOZMWTZFOIOPOLI
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	11h20m12s.71
RA (top/left)	11h18m10s.75
RA (top/right)	11h18m20s.66
RA (bottom/right)	11h22m13s.81
RA (bottom/left)	11h22m05s.64

Dec (center)	+13°17′32″.10
Dec (top/left)	+13°59′36″.4
Dec (top/right)	+12°34′00″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+12°35′22″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+14°01′02″.6

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Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

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Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

Leo Triplet (M 65, M 66, NGC 3628)

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