Galaxies in Leo

The Spring constellation of Leo, with its distinctive "backwards question mark" shape contains several interesting galaxies for us to point our cameras at. Below are the first pictures we have obtained of objects beyond our own galaxy. The distances involved are staggering, and near impossible to convey. Leo is just a taster for the delights of Virgo, which we will be hoping to image over the next month, weather permitting!

NGC 3190, 3187, 3193

Image taken 13/14 March 2003
50 images from c.125 stacked frames of 15 seconds exposure.
Location Tom's back garden, near Southampton
Hazy, half moon.
Statistics Distance:  c. 60 Million light years ( 350 Billion billion miles).
Equipment used Helios 8" newtonian reflector
Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 SC Long Exposure Modified (no lens)
K3CCDTools, Registax and Photoshop
Comments

This is our first real deep sky image of galaxies. The fuzzy blob at the top is NGC 3193. This is an elliptical galaxy, and fairly deviod of details. The galaxy in the middle is NGC 3190, which is a tightly wound spiral. In the bottom right it is just possible to see a faint smudge of NGC 3187. Although not as impressive as our Orion pictures, it is a completely different class of object. Galaxies are much further way, and much dimmer. Each of the galaxies in this picture contains many millions of stars. The other bright stars in the picture are in our own galaxy, and many times closer.

 

M66

Image taken 13 March 2003
50 images from c.200 stacked frames of 15 seconds exposure.
Location Tom's back garden, near Southampton
Hazy, half moon.
Statistics Distance:  c. 35 Million light years.
Equipment used Helios 8" newtonian reflector
Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 SC Long Exposure Modified (no lens)
K3CCDTools, Registax and Photoshop
Comments

M66 is a face on spiral galaxy in Leo. Again, the bright stars are in our own galaxy. The spiral arms of this galaxy can be seen in this picture. The bright glow top left is due to the CCD Camera itself and nothing to do with anything astronomical!

 
 

M65

Image taken 13 March 2003
50 images from c.200 stacked frames of 15 seconds exposure.
Location Tom's back garden, near Southampton
Hazy, half moon.
Statistics Distance:  c. 35 Million light years.
Equipment used Helios 8" newtonian reflector
Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 SC Long Exposure Modified (no lens)
K3CCDTools, Registax and Photoshop
Comments

M65 is an edge on spiral galaxy, similiar to the one above but from a different perspective. This object is very faint, however the galaxy can be seen extended across a large part of the image. The darker areas just above the centre (near the star) and left and right of centre are caused by large clouds of cold dust in M65 blocking the light out. It should also be noted that at some point in the distant past M66 and M65 brushed past each other, causing the slighly lopsided appearance of M66.

 
 


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Page last updated 2003-03-25