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Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  HD98388  ·  Leo Triplet  ·  M 65  ·  M 66  ·  NGC 3623  ·  NGC 3627  ·  NGC 3628
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The Leo Trio, Tom Gray
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The Leo Trio

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Description

The 'Leo Trio' rides high in the wee hours of the morning - a ‘glutton for punishment’, I stayed up and ventured into the snow and cold to set up and image this lovely triplet. Under a bright moon and snow (version C) this was always going to be challenging, but ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’.

At 35 mLY this group is well framed in a small refractor, and may well have interacted 800 million years ago. M65 (NGC 3623 upper right) is the least affected and maintains a good shape and structure. In comparison, M66 (NGC 3627 lower right) shows signs of distortion with a dense and offset central mass, as a result of the gravitational influence, not of M65 but NGC 3628 (left).

Unlike the face-on, or oblique view of spiral galaxies that we are used to, the third galaxy in this triplet, we see end-on. NGC 3628 ‘the hamburger’ galaxy has a broad durst lane (the bar) which is bifurcated at one end (just about visible at the upper end in my image).

I captured the data in Envisage and pre-processed in Nebulosity. Given the ‘success’ (a relative term) I have been having, I aligned and stacked these in Penumbra. The monochrome image (A) is in fact only processed in Penumbra using the inbuilt gradient removal, stretch and HDR brighten, and sharpening tools.

Version B is then processed with RGB frames (2x 2 binned 30s exposures) in Startools - I am quite pleased with the result, apart from being very saturated - it may be that I need to capture more luminance to compensate for the binned colour images? Version C - a nighttime snowscape sums up what was a cold but beautiful night, as I entered the wee hours of Burn’s night with, I hope, an ‘honest sonsie face’.

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Revisions

  • The Leo Trio, Tom Gray
    Original
  • The Leo Trio, Tom Gray
    B
  • The Leo Trio, Tom Gray
    C
  • Final
    The Leo Trio, Tom Gray
    D

B

Description: This rather saturated colour version comprises 2.7 hours of data - 76m L, and 2x2 binned R 28m, G 26m, B 34m as 30s subs. I processed the data in Startools v1.7 with limited gradient removal, HDR, sharpening, and deconvolution. Despite reducing saturation by 50% colour is too dominant, and I suspect I just need to balance this with more luminance. The final image was cropped to remove edge of field artefacts.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: ‘Lunacy... redefined as sitting out in the snow, under a bright ‘moonscape’ ... 🥶

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D

Description: A final cropped version (17 x 120s and 42 x 60s) luminance through IR cut filter. I kept exposures short, as I was having problems guiding, probably due to a rushed polar alignment. I have brightened, sharpened and deconvolved as far as I dare.

M66 appears not only to have a displaced bar/core, but also to exhibit significant warping (rather like a twisted 'pringle') or is that just my imagination?

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

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The Leo Trio, Tom Gray

In these public groups

Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Low-Cost Astrophotography
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