Discovered by William Herschel in 1784.
NGC 3628 forms a conspicuous group with
M65 and
M66, the
Leo
Triplet or M66 group (named after the brightest of the
three).
NGC 3628 is the faintest and most difficult in the group,
just faint enough to have escaped Messier's small telescopes
(although it may be that his later instruments might have
shown it, if he had ever looked at this place under very good
conditions). Thus its discovery was left to
William Herschel who cataloged it as H V.8 following its
discovery on April 8, 1784.
NGC 3628 is seen edge-on. A conspicuous band of dark dust
clouds form a broad equatorial band, which obscures the galaxy's
bright central region, and hides most of the bright young stars
in its spiral arms. The dust band, or belt, is obviously
distorted and deformed in the outer regions of the galaxy. The
reason for this deformation is evidently the gravitational
interaction with its two bright neighbors, M65 and M66. |