The Leo Triplet Galaxies M65, M66 and NGC3628 - 31 million light years
distant in the constellation Leo (naturally)
Messier 65 (NGC3623) at top right, is a spiral galaxy 8.7x2.2
arcminutes
in size and has a visual magnitude of 9.3
Messier 66 (NGC3627) at top left, is a spiral galaxy 8.2x3.9 arcminutes
in size and has a visual magnitude of 8.9
NGC3628, at bottom, is an edge-on sprial galaxy 14x4.0 arcminutes in
size and has a visual magnitude of 9.5
There are MANY tiny background galaxies to see too.
Click on the image above to see it 4x as large.
Imaging Details:
Telescope: Planewave 12.5" CDK
Camera: Apogee Instruments U16M w 7-position filter wheel and Astrodon
Gen II LRGB Filters
Mount: Paramount ME from Software Bisque
LRGB:
Luminance is 9 x 10 min
RGB are 9 / 5 / 10 x 10 min
Acquisition via CCD-Commander and TheSkyX
Calibration and RGB combine done in PixInsight
Luminance layered into the RGB in Photoshop CC 2019 and then a lot of clean-up
Ambient temp about 0C and CCD temp -25C
Lucknow, Ontario, Canada
April 24/25, 2019