SOCO IMAGE GALLERY


 

M 65, M 66 and NGC 3628    The Leo Triplet 

The Leo Triplet is an attractive grouping of three spiral galaxies located in the Eastern part of the constellation Leo. In my image, the galaxy in the upper right is M 65 (NGC 3623). M66 (NGC 3627) is below it, while the galaxy viewed edge-on in the left side of my image is NGC 3628 (it was not observed by Messier, so it is not included in his list). These three galaxies form an actual physical group located at a distance of 32.8 million LY. M 65 and M 66 are separated by only around 200,000 LY. M 65 is a classic spiral galaxy inclined 74 deg to out line of sight. It is estimated to be around 94,000 LY in diameter. The structure of this galaxy seems not to have been affected by encounters with the other members of the Triplet. On the other hand, M 66 exhibits a distorted spiral structure with the lower arm drawn in the direction of NGC 3628. This is likely the result of an encounter between the two galaxies in the past. With a diameter of around 87,000 LY, M 66 is a bit smaller than M 65.
The bright star to the left of M 65 is HD 98388. This is a class F Main Sequence star with a visual magnitude of 7.12 located around 144 LY from us.
We see NGC 3628 almost perfectly edge-on, with the dark lane of galactic dust dividing our view of the upper and lower parts of the galaxy. NGC 3628 has been called the "Hamburger Galaxy" because of this appearance. It exhibits a 300,000 LY-long tidal tail, probably the result of its earlier encounter with M 66. NGC 3628 is comparable in size to the two other members of the Triplet, having a diameter of around 78,000 LY.
M 65 and M 66 were observed by Messier in March 1870, although some sources credit his colleague Mechain as their discoverer. NGC 3628 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784.

Date(s) Acquired: 8 February 2016
Telescope: Orion 120mm EON Apochromatic Refractor
Camera: QSI Model 583

 

   Exposure Time (min) 
   Number of Exposures
   RGB
   15
   
   -
   
   -
   OIII
   -
   RGB
   6
   
   0
   
   0
   OIII
   0

 

Processing:
Master red, green, and blue images created using SuperSIAM.
Color composite image created using Basic Processing Procedure III.
Color composite image contrast-stretched using Adobe Photoshop.




 

 

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