Hickson 44 Group (Leo Quartet)

The Hickson 44, after Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson, is a group of gravitational bound four galaxies about 100 million light-years away in constellation Leo.  Other names include the Leo Quartet and the NGC 3190 Series. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the cropped image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187.  The bright elliptical galaxy on the upper left is  NGC 3193 the spiral in the center lower portion is NGC 3185 (source: APOD). On the wide field image NGC 3221 is visible on the left and NGC 3177 is visible on the lower right portion.

When I imaged NGC 2903 five days earlier I thought it would by my limit but it came came out better than I anticipated so I decided on these. I do think these are probably my lower limit.  They are small in my ED80 but much to my surprise, there was some detail in the galaxies including the dust lanes in 3190.  

Cropped

Wide Field

Hickson 44 Group
Location: Happy Frog Observatory, Monroe, CT
Date: 04-10-18
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ (HEQ5)
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 57 x 90s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 2 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools.
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