The Leo Triplet, or the M66 Group, is a group of interacting spiral galaxies located in the northern constellation leo. The group consists of the galaxies Messier65, Messier 66 and NGC 3628 also known as the Hamburger Galaxy.

16"f3.7 dream scope astrograph 16803 CCD New Mexico 5x300sec Lum 5X300sec Red 5X300sec Green 5X300sec blue 1x1

Image credit copyright : Michael Petrakos Muir Evenden, Utkarsh Mishra

Image Description and Details :

The Leo Trio is a small cluster of interacting galaxies located about 35 million light years from Earth.On the left-hand side of the image, the near-vertical bar with a thin band of black dust represents the galaxy NGC 3628, magnitude 9.5, seen from the edge. It is also known as the Hamburger Galaxy.Messier objects M 65 (NGC 3623), magnitude 9.3, below the upper right-hand corner, and M 66 (NGC 3627), magnitude 8.9, to the left of the lower right-hand corner, are tilted enough for their spiral arms to be visible.This image was taken in Perche-Normandy France.The total acquisition time is 5h15 in L,R,G,B.The image was taken with a Newton 250-900 telescope (F/D 4), Moravian G2 4000 camera on EQ8 Skywatcher mount



Copyright: Francis Bozon

Even the cosmos is practicing “Social Distancing” The great classic of this time of year: Leo triplet, made from a backyard in the Paris region.

This is an image of M66, also known as NGC3627. It is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 36 million light years away in the constellation Leo. It is a member of the Leo Triplet, which also includes M65 and NGC3628.

Dates: December 14, 2017 - January 17, 2018 

Location: Dark Sky New Mexico        

Telescope: Planewave CDK-17          

Camera: FLI PL16803                  

Mount: Paramount ME                  

Luminance: 27x20 minutes (binned 1x1)

Red: 12x15 minutes (binned 1x1)      

Green: 12x15 minutes (binned 1x1)    

Blue: 12x15 minutes (binned 1x1) 

Copyright: Bernard Miller