The Leo Triplet
===========

The Leo Triplet - one of the spring sky's most iconic galaxy groups, some 35 million light-years away in Leo.

Three spiral galaxies in a single field of view: NGC 3628, the Hamburger Galaxy, seen perfectly edge-on with its striking dust lane and tidally warped disk. M65 with well-defined spiral arms and a bright core. M66, the brightest member, showing asymmetric arms distorted by billions of years of gravitational interaction.

Scope: Askar 103APO
Lens: Askar 1.0x Flattener
Camera: ZWO ASI 294MC Pro
Filter: Svbony UV/IR-Cut
Mount: SkyWatcher AZ-EQ5-GT
Guiding: SkyWatcher Evoguide 50ED with ZWO ASI 224MC
Controller: ZWO ASIAir Pro
Focusser: ZWO EAF

Integration time: 4hrs 20min

Full version and print available at:
https://adfr.io/astro/20260322_leo_triplet

#astrophotography #leotriplet #m65 #m66 #ngc3628 #galaxies #deepsky #springsky #leo #cosmos #nightsky

The Leo Triplet - a group of galaxies in the constellation Leo 35 million light-years away. The galaxies are called M65, M66, and NGC 3628.

#astrophotography #space #astro #galaxy #sweden #leotriplet

Animation of #Asteroid #Flora approaching #NGC3628 the #HamburgerGalaxy in the #LeoTriplet 7th, 8th & 9th April 2025. Imaged from #Oxfordshire with a #WilliamOptics 70mm refractor + #Canon1100D Moonlight has been a real pain!

This week #Asteroid #Flora passes across #NGC3628 the #HamburgerGalaxy in the #LeoTriplet. This video shows its position from 8th-13th April. The galaxy is faint so moonlight will make it difficult visually, but it's still a decent imaging target. This is just a line of sight effect! #AsteroidTransit

This week #Asteroid #Flora passes across #NGC3628 the #HamburgerGalaxy in the #LeoTriplet. This graphic shows its position from 9th-12th April. The galaxy is faint so moonlight will make it difficult visually, but it's still a decent imaging target. This is just a line of sight effect! #AsteroidTransit

#leotriplet #backyardastronomy #astrophotography

The Leo Triplet with galaxies M65, M66, and NGC3628.
ZWO Seestar S50.
250mm, f5, 418 exposures of 10’’.
#telescope #telescopes #zwo #zwoasi #zwoseestar #zwoseestars50 #seestar #seestars50 #astro #astrophoto #astrophotos #astrophotography #astrophotographer #spacephotography #astronomy #spaceexploration #nasa #universe #space #deepsky #deepsky #deepspace #galaxy #galaxies #leotriplet #m66 #messier66 #messier #m65 #ngc3628

I wanted to go after the Leo Triplet again after seeing how great the Newtonian did on M106 and the Triplet last time, but I last captured the Triplet before the scope was flocked so it has a faint donut around the galaxies. I figured I wouldn't risk stacking the new data with the old in case the donut would appear in the stack, so I started over on it. I got 5.43 hours of data on it which is almost an hour more than what I got last time. The two are pretty similar to each other, but it's nice to get rid of that donut.

163x120s lights (5.43 hours), flats, darks, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril and background extraction and noise reduction applied with GraXpert.
----
🌌 M65/M66/NGC 3628
🔭 Celestron Astromaster 114 (Scope), Skywatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Canon Rebel T4i (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
----
#m65 #m66 #ngc3628 #leotriplet #galaxy #galaxies #canon #canonrebel #rebelt4i #canonrebelt4i #dslr #skywatcher #siril