M 105 Group...and many other galaxies
About image
This image is centered on a triplet of galaxies in Leo constellation, but it is not the more famous "Leo Triplet" composed by M65/M66 and NGC 3628.
In this case the triplet is composed by the bright elliptic E1 galaxy M105 (NGC 3379), the SB0 galaxy NGC 3371 and the small bluish galaxy NGC 3373.
Anyway, it is believed that it is not a real triplet, because NGC 3373 seems more distant that the other two galaxies.
On the top right side it is well visible the galaxy M96, while on the bottom left side it stands NGC 3412.
But doing an astrometric reduction in Pixinsight and then the annotation, it is found that there are in total something like 182 galaxies in this image!
Yes most of them are really faint and with stellar appearance, but this looks me surprised considering that I have obtained this image from my home terrace under a Bortle 8 sky and fighting with the street lamps, without using any light pollution filter.
Technical data
Optic Tecnosky Apo refractor LT 130-910 with Riccardi reducer 0.75x (focal lenght 692mm, f/5.3)
Mount Skywatcher EQ8
Camera Moravian G3-16200 CCD with external filter wheel 7 positions
Filters Baader 50mm unmounted RGB
Guiding system Artesky Ultraguide 70mm
Exposure details R 68x120" bin1 -15C
G 68x120" bin1 -15C
B 68x120" bin1 -15C
Total integration 6h48'
Acquisition Voyager, PHD2
Processing Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5, NoiseXTerminator, BlurXterminator, StarXTerminator
SQM-L 18.2
Location Rescaldina (Italy), home terrace
Date 3/4/5 March 2025
© Roberto Marinoni 2019 - All rights reserved