NGC3628 Edge on Peculiar Galaxy in Leo

Uploaded 4/2/11

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 This edge on spiral forms a perfect trio with the more famous M65/M66 pair and can be seen faintly in the 80mm finder. The upper panel here shows the final image of this object, while the lower frame is a key with an overlay of Megastar star atlas to show the small galaxies in the field. The brightest of these is 15.6 magnitude and Megastar plots the faintest at 17.6. None of the quasars seen in the map show up since they are at 20th magnitude.

Galaxy Description:

This galaxy is inclined about 7 degrees from perfectly edge on and spans 15 arc minutes in size. Although bright at 10.3rd magnitude, it is spread out and dim, with a peculiar widening of the spiral arms on the ends.

Optics: 12.5" f/5 Newtonian - Lumicon Coma Corrector Platform: Astrophysics AP1200 Camera: Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO800 Exposure: 12 x 5m = 1 hour Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 6/10, Transparency 7/10 Outside Temperature: 45F Processing Tools: Photoshop CS2, Images Plus 3.82 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS