Object: The Leo Trio of Galaxies (M65, M66, and NGC3628)
Date: 04/1/05
Location: Upham, NM
Telescope: TeleVue 85mm refractor (f/5.6) piggyback on a Meade 10" LX200
Guiding: GuideDog and SC modified web-cam
Camera: Canon 300D (unmodified)
Exposure: 11 x 4min, ISO 800, Temp 35 degrees F
Processing: Non-linear conversion (no darks), aligned and combined (sigma clipped average) in ImagesPlus.  I used Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator P.S. plug-in for background gradient removal and then curves and a light unsharp mask filter.  To see how well GradientXTerminator worked, click here.
Comments: This small group of galaxies consists of the Messier objects M65 (lower right), and M66 (lower left), along with the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC3628 (upper left.) At a distance of about 35 million light-years, these three galaxies form a triplet at the heart of the M66 group, which includes a number of other galaxies.  A faint edge-on galaxy, IC2763 is also visible at the lower left edge of the image.  For a larger version click here. 

© Dave Dockery 2005