The Leo Trio
About this object
The Leo Trio of galaxies lies in the constellation Leo. It consists of 3 galaxies, Messier 65, Messier 66 and NGC 3628. The galaxies lie near 36 million light years distant. NGC 3628 (top in the image) has a faint tidal tail (stars stripped from the galaxy due to an interaction) of stars which can be seen streaming off to the left hand side. M66 (lower left) is almost a face on spiral and shows striking dust lanes and blue star forming regions. M65 (lower right) is also a spiral galaxy with easy to see dust lanes. The above image is a combination of about 5hrs of exposure time through Luminance, Red, Green and Blue filters. It was taken at the 2018 Texas Star Party under extremely dark skies.
Image Details
- Optics : Stellarvue SVQ86 refractor
- Mount: Paramount MyT
- Camera: SBIG STL 11K
- Filters: Custom Scientific 50mm LRGB filter set
- Exposure: LRGB 90:80:70:60
- Camera/Mount Control: The Sky X, CCD Autopilot
- Guiding: Unguided using Protrack
- Processing: PixInsight
- Location: Texas Star Party, Ft Davis, TX
- Date: May 2018
