NGC 3190 group (Hickson 44)

The Hickson 44 group of galaxies lies some 60-90 million light years distant in the constellation Leo. The group includes NGC 3190, shining at maginitude 11.1, the galaxy with the prominent dust lane near the center of the image above. Towards the upper left is the elliptical galaxy NGC 3193 shining at magnitude 10.8. Below and slightly left of NGC 3190 is NGC 3187, at magnitude 14.0. Near the lower right of the image is the barred spiral NGC 3185 at magnitude 12.0. Many other very faint galaxies to unknown magnitudes pepper the image. Interestingly, NGC 3190 has a faint halo of stars surrounding the galaxy as does NGC 3185. The links above display the entire field as captured by the QSI 583 camera. Unfortunately, I ran out of time capturing the color frames and ideally should have captured 2 more hours of each color so some of the fainter areas of the image are un saturated with color but such is life in this interesting hobby.

• Optics : Stellarvue SV130 Triplet Refractor with a SFF7-21 Field Flattener
• Mount: Mountain Instruments MI-250
• Camera: QSI 583
• Filters: Astronomik Type 2C LRGB filter set
• Exposure: LRGB 520:60:60:60 RGB binned 2x2
• Camera/Mount Control: Maxim DL 4.56, CCD Commander
• Location: Stark Bayou Observatory, Ocean Springs, MS
• Date: Feb/Mar 10