The Leo Triplet Galaxies M65, M66 and NGC3628 - 31 million light years
distant in the constellation Leo (naturally)
Messier 65 (NGC3623) at top left, is a spiral galaxy 8.7x2.2 arcminutes
in size and has a visual magnitude of 9.3
Messier 66 (NGC3627) at bottom, is a spiral galaxy 8.2x3.9 arcminutes
in size and has a visual magnitude of 8.9
NGC3628, at right, 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 twice as large. Below is a close-up of M65:
Imaging Details:
ST-10XME with Takahashi FSQ on AP900GTO.
LRGB:
Luminance is 23 x 5 min
R 7 x 5 min, GB are 4 x 5 min per channel
Acquisition, Darks, Flats in CCDSoft5
Debloomed, aligned and combined in Maxim
Colour combine, Levels, select High Pass Filter all in Photoshop CS2
Luminance layered in at 50% twice per Rob Gendler
Ambient temp about -14C and CCD temp -25C
Flesherton, Ontario, Canada
Jan 18/19, 2007