M66 in Leo

 

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Description: This spiral galaxy is part of the Trio in Leo, a group of galaxies 30 million light-years distant.  It is thought to be somewhat distorted from the gravitational interaction with the other members of the group: M65 and NGC3628.
 
Exposure Data: 3/5/2002.  LRGB: 12x5m, 6x3m, 6x3m, 6x5m. RGB binned 2x2. -20°C, 1.0 arc-sec./pixel.
 
Processing: Acquired in Maxim, Reduced, aligned and Min/max clip in Mira, Double size and RGB combine in Maxim. Lum 5 iterations in CCDSharp. LLRGB, curves, levels, flatten, unsharp mask and gaussian blur in Photoshop.
 
Optical System: 10” Ritchey-Chretien @ F/7.2, ST-8E NABG/CFW-8A CCD camera, STV/eFinder, AP900GTO mount.
 
Comments: Seeing was around 4.0 arc-sec.