Galaxies In The Spring Sky

 Click on Images for a larger view

Here is the first Deep Sky image taken with the new telescope mentioned in an earlier post.  Taken from my front yard in Cleveland, MO, this is a Triplet of Galaxies in the constellation Leo.  Individually they are M65 (top right), M66 (bottom right) and NGC 3628 (left).  All grand spiral disks made up of stars, gas and dust, but look dissimilar because they are tilted at different angles from our view.  Below are close up views of each galaxy.  Notice that the outer parts of the disks in M66 and NGC 3628 are distorted.  This is due to the gravitational interaction of each galaxy on each other.