M65 (Spring 2021)

M65 is a favorite to observe and to image.  I saw the galaxy a few nights ago from my backyard with a 6" telescope at 120x.  It's thrilling to see light that has traveled 35 million light years, or so, and realize it hits my own retina.

Here is an earlier image with a 10" reflector:

https://polarisb.blogspot.com/2012/02/m65-ngc3623-feb-25-2012.html

And another in 2019 with an 8" reflector:

https://polarisb.blogspot.com/2019/04/m65-sprin-2019.html

This latest image is from very fine AG Optical data: 22 x 300 each of RGB and 81 x 300 of Lum.  It's better data than I've used in the past, and it's better color.

Leo Trio (April 2015)

I am just getting around to processing this 8 hours of luminance data from DSW in New Mexico.  As you can see, the skies there are great and equipment superb.  The telescope is a Tak FSQ 106.  The 8300-chip camera leaves slight blooms on stars that mimic diffraction spikes, an aesthetically pleasing failure of the camera's anti-blooming gate.

This is a great part of the sky, and this image allows one to fall into it several hundred million light years.  The big galaxies are about 35 million light years away (give or take 10 million). The smallest galaxies are hundreds of millions of light years distant.  See if you can spot clumps of those little dust motes in the distant background.

M65 (NGC3623) (Feb. 25, 2012)

M65 is estimated to be 29,000,000 to 52,000,000 light years away.  We find it in Leo.  The galaxy appears near two other galaxies (M66 & NGC 3628) that possibly (likely?) have had some gravitational interaction, but M65 does not appear to be disturbed by them (see here).  Maybe the nearness is more apparent than real.

This image was cut short because my secondary dew'd up.  I actually included a few frames from after the start of dewing.  The dew destroyed star shapes and lessened contrast and depth.  It's clearly a problem I will have to address.  This is the first session in which dew has been a problem, of about ten or twelve with this scope over the last year.

Telescope: Orion 10" f/4.7 Newtonian and Baader RCC1
Camera and Exposure: SXVF-H9, 13x10'
Filter: IDAS-LPS2
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX

Leo Trio

The Leo Trio lies about 35 or 36 million light years away. These galaxies are gravitationally bound together. The one in the upper left, M66, is roughly 100,000 light years across. Assuming these systems are all roughly the same distance, they may well be within 1 million light years of each other. It's no wonder that they show signs of distortion. Look carefully at M66. Which side appears longer, left or right? Whichever you decide, it is clear that M66's two sides differ, and this is thought to be the effect of having neighbors nearby. The galaxy on the right, NGC 3628, is also distorted. Its stars are being pulled out all around it, like too much lettuce spilling out of a ham sandwich. Even more interesting, NGC 3628 has a long tidal tail that is too faint to appear in this image but is clear in this very cool and very deep image by Steve Mandel (processed by Ken Crawford).

This image is the last of my January 18 run. This was also taken with the AT66ED and the Atik 16, unguided on the LXD75. It is about an hour's worth of 10-second exposures. No darks, no flats, no bias frames.