APOD: The Leo Triplet Galaxies from VST (2011 Aug 03)

[APOD Robot]

The Leo Triplet Galaxies from VST

Explanation: This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet - a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these galaxies can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (left), M66 (bottom right), and M65 (top right). All three are large spiral galaxies. They tend to look dissimilar because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628 is seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across the plane of the galaxy, while the disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have also left telltale signs, including the warped and inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous deep view of the region was taken by the new VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and spans about one degree (two full moons) on the sky. The field covers over 500 thousand light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million light-years.

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[Guest]

The fourth sentence is mixed up. It's M66 that's seen edge-on.

[Guest]

Oops. Make that sentence #2.

[Beyond]

Triplets -- How nice! They must still be rather young, as i see that only one of them is able to stand up rather straight.

[shailesh]

Seems like the names of top and left bottom galaxies should be swapped ?

[Lucidus]

Actually, it's NGC 3628 on the left, M65 top right, and M66 bottom right.

[Ann]

The galaxy at top is M65. The galaxy on the right is M66, and the galaxy on the left is NGC 3628.

What is extraordinary about the image is that it is so deep and so wide at the same time. Compare with Hubble images. They are much deeper than this image, but Hubble has a very small field of view, and I can't imagine how many Hubble exposures would be necessary to create an image like this one.

To me the colors of this image are hard to read. I'll quote ESO's own introduction, which you can find here. ESO says about the filters used and how the colors were mapped:

Light that passed through a near-infrared filter was coloured red, light in the red part of the spectrum is coloured green, and green light is coloured magenta.

Because of the choice of filters and mapped colors, I find it hard to read the color information that can often be extracted from a RGB color image. ESO has probably had their own reasons for their choice of filters and mapped colors, however.

Ann

[emonroye]

It seems that the image is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise respect to the explaination in text.

[bystander]

The text here has been fixed. The APOD editors have been notified.

NGC 3628 (left), M66 (bottom right), and M65 (top right)

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=24573

[keithds@btinternet.com]

Another superb APOD, although the positions of the Triplets are incorrectly shown in the explanation. I see they are correctly indicated on the 'discussion' page.

KDS

[Indigo_Sunrise]

Descriptive positioning errors aside - - this is a gorgeous image!

(Galaxy images are some of my favorites!)

[JuanAustin]

I'd sure like to see an artist's rendition of a night sky of a planet on the very end of the streaming tail of 3628!

[neufer]

It seems that the image is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise respect to the explanation in text.

They forgot to rotate the explanation: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060309.html

[neufer]

The Leo Triplet Galaxies from VST

[saturn2]

Handsome image
Distance from Earth to Leo Triplet 30 million light years.
It like to have a error in the location of the galaxies.

[brian1204]

If you look closely you can see at least 5 other galaxies in the background...

[Guest]

only5!

its impossible to count the amount of galxies in this picture, there are a heck of a lot

[orin stepanek]

The video zoom is fantastic!

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[jcstehli]

If you look closely you can see at least 5 other galaxies in the background...

I was seeing closer to 50, or even 100.

[jcstehli]

If you look closely you can see at least 5 other galaxies in the background...

I was seeing closer to 50, or even 100.

Well, curiosity go the better of me. I count 319 galaxies, more or less.

[JuanAustin]

Has anyone ever thought of creating a zodiac of just the galaxies from our vantage point like i have?
I would call it The Oyervides

[jerrythebiker]

Why is APOD repeating the entry from March 6, 2009? Was it a slow day for astronomy?

[neufer]

Why is APOD repeating the entry from March 6, 2009? Was it a slow day for astronomy?

Only the Explanation was repeated.

(It was a slow day for coming up with an explanation.)

[n8zrj]

Does anyone know what the interloper is to the left of the lower right galaxy (M66)? There is a small red streak followed by a purple streak.

[NoelC]

NICE resolution, though not nearly that of the Hubble. Plus they've used a color mapping I'm not fond of, and the image is not particularly deep (the tidal tail near NGC3628 isn't too visible). Still, a crisp image for a ground-based scope.

Just as a comparison, this is just a hint at the kind of resolution for M66 that the Hubble attains:

Downsized Composite of M66 Using Hubble Exposures

Scientific research often does not use visual color filters (e.g., wideband red, green, blue). I was surprised to learn that some big telescopes (e.g., the GTC in the Canary Islands) aren't even equipped with wideband blue filters.

I'm assuming for a sky survey that being able to see through dust by imaging in IR reveals a lot more stuff.

-Noel