M66 (March 2018)

Galaxy M66 is 37 million light years away.  It appears in our constellation Leo.

The image also shows several background galaxies.  In the upper right corner you can find galaxy PGC 1417198, magnitude 17.18 and 1.2 billion light years away. In the upper left corner, galaxy PGC 3542444 shines at magnitude 17.95 and is 2.9 billion light years away! Wow! That must be some galaxy! Just below that and a little to the right is PGC 1423398, which is  magnitude 17.85 and 1.9 billion light years from us.  (These distances come from SkySafari.)

The dimmest stars in this image are +19 magnitude.

This image is 42x480" (5.6 hours) over two nights with the SXVF-H9C through the ONTC-Synta Newtonian and Baader MPCC II.

M66 was actually the first deep sky object I ever imaged eleven years ago. A year later, ten years ago this month, I obtained what I thought was a decent image. I posted about it here.

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.

Messier 66 (March 2016)

Here is galaxy Messier 66, in the constellation Leo.  The galaxy is close for a galaxy, roughly 32,000,000 light years away.  Notice that the galaxy is not symmetrical. It has been pulled, perhaps by nearby galaxy NGC 3628 (which also appears disturbed) or perhaps by M65 (which appears undisturbed).  Anyway, these galaxies are close and bright, and I've imaged all three several times, but never at 2300mm focal length, as this is.  Even so, seeing was not optimal that night, and I've shrunk the image down about 40% to account for this.  It is still a fun image.  This is 13x720" with the SXVF-H9 camera through the CC290 telescope, guided on the NJP.  (There were two reflection streaks across the left half of the image.  I did my best to erase them, but faint signs of them still exist.  I'm not sure where they came from, but I am fairly confident they were not in space.)

M66 (2-28-2011)

This galaxy is about 36 million light years away in the constellation Leo. This image is 22x7' with the 6" I-newt, IDAS-LPS-P2, Baader MPCC, and SXVF-H9C. I was going to go back the next night for more time, but, against the prediction of every weather report, clouds set in. Just for kicks, please see the image I took of M66 in March 2007 (linked here). It was my first astrophoto. I was thrilled.

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.