The Leo Triplet or M66 Group

Leo Triplet of Galaxies - 127mm Meade Apo-Refractor- Altair Astro 0.6x focal reducer and field flattener -Canon 600D DSLR - QHY5-11 guide camera - 40 x 2 min picture subs at ISO1600 stacked. Credit Pip Stakkert

" The weather has not been kind so imaging has been difficult from our coastal location at the Jodrell Plank Observatory. The whole team was up an awake for the whole night of 23/24 February 2018 to capture 80 minutes of data from these remote galaxies. Normally, we would have taken 4minute subs at IS0800 but because of the intermittent cloud we had to limit sub exposures to 2 minutes.

Credit: Pip Stakkert

The Leo Triplet or M66 Group comprises at least 3 spiral galaxies M65, M66, and NGC3628. The central dust-lane, in the edge on viewed galaxy - NGC 3628, is clearly visible in our image. These red shifted galaxies (moving away from us at between 700-800 km/sec) are approximately 35 million light years distant from our Solar System. (332 million million kilometres).

The Leo Triplet is located physically close to the Leo Group or M96 Group. These two groups may be part of a larger Group. The M96 Group lies within the Virgo Supercluster which contains our Local Group." - Kurt Thrust acting CEO and current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.