M105 (NGC 3379) is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Leo. At magnitude 9.3 it cannot be seen by naked eye. See location below.
M105 is the elliptical galaxy in the center of the photo and is part of the Leo I or M96 group of galaxies.
M105 (NGC 3379) is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Leo. At magnitude 9.3 it cannot be seen by naked eye. See location below.
M105 is the elliptical galaxy in the center of the photo and is part of the Leo I or M96 group of galaxies.
M95 (NGC 3351) & M96 (NGC 3368) are spiral galaxies in the constellation Leo. At magnitudes 9.7 and 9.2, respectfully, they cannot be seen by naked eye. See their location below.
My first attempt on March 24th was too cloudy. I increased the exposure time and waited for a more clear night and less moon on 04/14/2023.
North (toward Polaris) is up in the photo. The picture was taken with a fully modified Canon Rebel camera (this is my one shot color camera) on a TEC 140 telescope in the Alpenglow-Torrey House Observatory in the dark sky community of Torrey, Utah (Bortle 2-3). The ten best of 14 120-second sub-frames were used and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker = twenty minute photo. Unguided, binned 2X2 (to make smaller files for remote transfer), no calibration frames. Processed in Photoshop (CS5).
Location in the night sky of the photo:
M109 (NGC 3992) is a spiral galaxy in Ursa Major (The Big Dipper). At magnitude 9.8 it cannot be seen with the naked eye. M109 is in the center of the photo. In Stellarium M109 is called the “Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy.”
M74 (NGC 628) is a spiral galaxy in Pisces.
M33 (NGC 598) is a spiral Galaxy in Triangulum called the Triangulum Galaxy.
M33 is in the center of the frame below.
M31 (NGC 224) is a spiral galaxy in Andromeda and is our closest galaxy neighbor– the Andromeda Galaxy.
Most of M31 is in the frame below.
M110 is an elliptical galaxy (NGC 205), in Andromeda, and is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31.
M110 is in the center of the frame below.
M32 is an elliptical galaxy (NGC 221), in Andromeda and is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31.
M32 is in the center of the frame below.
Spring is galaxy season. The Milky Way winds low around the horizon leaving the thin part of the galaxy overhead making the best time to look up and out through our galaxy to other galaxies millions of light years away. The larger galaxies in this image range from 15 million to 40 million light years away. Our galaxy is estimated to be between 150,000 to 200,000 light-years in diameter making these galaxies well beyond the stars and objects inside the neighborhood of our Milky Way.
The two brightest, fuzzy objects in the right center of the screen are the elliptical galaxies M86 and M84. The two galaxies in the upper left are known as “The Eyes.”
Speaking of eyes, in 1823 Wilhelm Olbers used his to look up at night and wondered why it is dark at all.
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