Through drifting fog clouds. Using the Sony A7 as APS-C to utilize the 0.67 reducer. That gives big sensible pixels able to utilize the resolving power with the reducer.

The Leo Triplet is a group of interacting spiral galaxies located in the constellation Leo, about 35 million light years away from Earth¹². The group consists of the galaxies Messier 65, Messier 66, and NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy¹²³. The Leo Triplet is also known as the M66 Group or Arp 317¹³.

The Leo Triplet was discovered by Charles Messier in 1780, who catalogued M65 and M66, but missed NGC 3628 due to its faintness¹². NGC 3628 was later discovered by William Herschel in 1784¹². The three galaxies are part of the larger Leo II Group, a cluster of galaxies that belongs to the Virgo Supercluster¹².

The Leo Triplet shows signs of gravitational interactions among its members, such as distorted spiral arms, warped disks, and tidal tails¹²³. M66 is the largest and brightest of the three, with an apparent magnitude of 8.9 and an apparent size of 9.1 by 4.2 arc minutes¹². It has a diameter of about 95,000 light years and contains about 200 billion stars¹². It has a high rate of star formation due to the tidal forces from its neighbors¹².

M65 is the second brightest, with an apparent magnitude of 10.25 and an apparent size of 8.7 by 2.5 arc minutes¹². It has a diameter of about 85,000 light years and contains about 100 billion stars¹². It is a relatively quiet galaxy, with little dust and gas and low star formation activity¹².

NGC 3628 is the faintest and most edge-on of the three, with an apparent magnitude of 10.2 and an apparent size of 15 by 3.6 arc minutes¹². It has a diameter of about 100,000 light years and contains about 150 billion stars¹². It has a prominent tidal tail that spans over 300,000 light years, but is very faint and hard to see¹². It also has a thick band of dust that obscures its nucleus and spiral arms[^1]^ [2]^.

The Leo Triplet can be seen with a medium-sized telescope as a faint smudge of light near the star Chertan in Leo[^1]^ [2]^.

Kilde: Samtale med Bing, 18.6.2023
(1) Leo Triplet - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Triplet.
(2) Leo Triplet | Messier Objects. https://www.messier-objects.com/leo-triplet/.
(3) Leo Triplet | Images and facts | BBC Sky at Night Magazine. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/astrophotography/galaxies/leo-triplet/.