Astral Imaging at Dogwood Ridge Observatory

Latitude: 37°48'51.0" N"
Longitude:78°23'41.0"W
Scottsville, Virginia 24590

 

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M65-M66

Image Information

Quoted from SEDS

Discovered 1780 by Charles Messier.

Messier 65 (M65, NGC 3623), together with its neighbors M66 and NGC 3628, forms a most conspicuous triplet of galaxies, the Leo Triplett or M66 group, located at a distance of about 35 million light years.

Although it is close to and thus under the gravitational influence of its neighbors, M65 looks like a very "normal" Sa type spiral and seems to have felt little influence. It has a prominent central lense and tightly wound spiral arms, plus a prominent dust lane marking the facing edge. The luminous disk is dominated by a smooth old stellar population. Near the lane, some knots are visible, which, according to J.D. Wray, may be associated with star forming regions. The lane may hide regions of star formation usually associated with such features in spiral galaxies.

M65, together with its neighbor, M66, has been discovered by Charles Messier, who cataloged it on March 1, 1780, describes it as "very faint nebula without stars." Because of a dubious error, Admiral Smyth has assigned this discovery of M65 and M66 (and M68) to Pierre Méchain, a view which was adopted by Kenneth Glyn Jones somewhen in the 1960s, and consequently, in many sources, despite the fact that Messier doesn't acknowledge such a prior sighting, which he did in all other cases.


Discovered 1780 by Charles Messier.

Messier 66 (M66, NGC 3627), together with its neighbors M65 and NGC 3628, forms a most conspicuous triplet of galaxies, the Leo Triplett or M66 group, located at a distance of about 35 million light years.

M66 is considerably larger than its neighbor, M65, and has a well developed but not well defined central bulge, and is therefore classified Sb. Obviously its spiral arms are deformed, probably because of the encounters with its neighbors. They seem to be distorted and displaced above the plane of the galaxy. Note how one of the spiral arms seems to pass over the left side of the central bulge. Much dust is visible here, as well as a few pink nebulae, signs of star formation, near the end of one of the arms.

Together with its neighbor M65, M66 has been discovered by Charles Messier, who cataloged it on March 1, 1780, remarks that he missed these two objects in 1773, when a comet passed between them on November 1 to 2, 1773, probably because of the light of the comet. Because of a dubious error, Admiral Smyth has assigned this discovery of M65 and M66 (and M68) to Pierre Méchain, a view which was adopted by Kenneth Glyn Jones somewhen in the 1960s, and consequently, in many modern sources, despite the fact that Messier doesn't acknowledge such a prior sighting, which he did in all other cases.

Three supernovae have appeared in this galaxy:

  • 1973R which was of type II and reached mag 15 was found on Dec 12, 1973.
  • 1989B was discovered on Jan 31, 1989 and became as bright as mag 12.2 on Feb 1, 1989.
  • 1997bs was discovered by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search Team as it occurred on April 15, 1997 at 13" west, 67" south of the galaxy's center and reached mag 17.0; this was of peculiar type IIn.

 

 

 

 

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This image is compiled from 13 - 15 minute RGB images and 9 - 15 minute Luminance images.  A total of 5.5 hours of data was used. All data was acquired using MaxImDl/CCD version 4.61 using ACP.   Images were reduced, De-Bloomed, Auto Star Aligned and saved in MaxIm. I used Registar for the final alignment of all image frames. The data was then brought into MaxImDl where sigma reject was performed using Russell Crowman's RC Console plug-in to produce the master image combining the RGB layers into the color image. Photoshop CS 3 was used for curves and levels.  The image data was collected over January 11-15, 2008.

Equipment and Location Information

Date January 11 - 15, 2008
Location Dogwood Ridge Observatory
Optics TeleVue NP101
Mount Astro Physics AP1200GTO
Camera SBIG ST10XME
Conditions Temperature middle  20's -  low 30's with very moderate  seeing. Transparency good to moderate.

    
  Last Modified :01/23/09 12:40 AM