NGC 3628 the faintest galaxy of the Leo Triplet. The other two are M65 and M66. NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy seen edge on. It is 35 million light-years away and about 130,000 light years in diameter. It has a long tidal tail which extends 300,000 light years away from M65 and M66 (to the left in my picture below but it is far too faint for me to capture) which was caused by a close interaction with M65 and M66 at sometime in the past. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. There is a beautiful picture of the trio in the APOD for 9 March 2006.
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NGC 3628 is about 36 arc minutes from M65 and M66. Move your mouse over the image to see a version enhanced with this gamma curve
 You can just see a split in the dark lane across the galaxy to the right, which was caused by the interaction with M65 and M66 in the past. Date and Time: 5th December 2011 04:38 to 04:58 UT Camera: Starlight Xpress MX716 Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer and Astronomik CLS filter Capture: Star_mx7. Exposure 120 sec, 10 frames Processing: Star_mx7. Black level, enhancement factor 25, black level, on each frame. Irfanview. Conversion to png format. RegiStax6. 8 frames stacked, Gaussian wavelets Scheme 3, dering dark side 300. PhotoImpact. Contrast 4. Focus Magic 2,100. |
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