My original image of this was from over four years ago and this time around I was most interested in the rarely captured tidal tail coming off the left-side of NGC 3628 (a.k.a. The Hamburger Galaxy). I was not aware of this tail until I read an article on the Leo Triplet in the April 2021 issue of Sky & Telescope. Tidal tails consist of stars and gas formed during close encounters of two galaxies. In this case, NGC 3628 and M66, which had their closest encounter at only 82,000 light-years 800 mya . The tail extends a whopping 300,000 light-years and there is a recently discovered dwarf galaxy (Leo-TDG) at the end. I was not confident that I would get anything in my borderline Bortle 5 sky, however, there are some hints of it if you look closely, especially near the upper corner of the galaxy (Yay - it is not a failure). The dwarf galaxy would be off the image even if it were visible. I like the prominent dust lane that bisects this galaxy into two halves (or buns holding the hamburger). One other noteworthy thing with NGC 3628 is a small fuzzy blob just below the the central portion of the galaxy - it is not clear what this is, but Halton Arp, American Astronomer and author of Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies believed they were material ejected from the core.
I thought M65 and M66 both came out well and their central structures are well detailed - much better than I was expecting. All three of these galaxies are disturbed somewhat and are included in Dr. Arp's catalog (There you Gary Imm, I finally did some Arp objects). I thought about posting these separately but thought I might be pushing it with my refractor and they are already cropped a bit so I lift it alone.
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1
Dates: 4-3, 4-4, 4-5, 4-6, 4-7, 4-8
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: L 367 x 60, R 97 x 60, G 99 x 60, B 102 x 60
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 8 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoiseAI.
https://www.instagram.com/astroquest1/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1
No comments:
Post a Comment