M66 — Leo Triplet (member)
Galaxy in Leo
About
NGC 3627, an intermediate spiral galaxy in Leo about 31 million light-years away, with loosely wound arms and a weak bar. A past encounter with NGC 3628 left one arm distorted and dusty. Five supernovae have been seen in it since 1973.
Imaging tips
- About 9′ by 4′, which needs 2,690–4,490 mm on APS-C; full frame is too small to frame it, so plan a long focal length and fine pixel scale.
- M65 lies only about 20′ away, so around 500–800 mm one frame holds M66, M65 and NGC 3628 together.
- Broadband is the right choice: the Galactic Hunter write-up found Hα added little, using 10-minute LRGB frames and 3-minute DSLR frames.
- Faint at 21.4 mag/arcsec²; a Bortle 5 session of 90 s luminance and 5 minute colour frames showed the trio, while a 12.5 hour set went much deeper.
- Best around February and March; it stays below 53° altitude from 50°N.
Facts
- Size
- 9′ × 4′
- Magnitude
- 8.9
- Coordinates
- RA 11h 20.2m, Dec +13° 0′
- Framing, APS-C
- 2690–4490 mm
- Framing, full frame
- longer than 4000 mm
- Best months
- Feb, Mar
- Peak altitude
- 53° from 50°N, 68° from 35°N