M105, NGC 3389, and NGC 3384 - Another Galaxy Trio in Leo
M105, NGC 3389, and NGC 3384 - Another Galaxy Trio in Leo
M105, NGC 3389, and NGC 3384 - Another Galaxy Trio in Leo
This image shows a trio of galaxies, two of which are part of the Leo I Galaxy Group and one of which lines up by chance with the other galaxies. The large elliptical galaxy at the bottom is M105, which is a dominant member of the Leo I group as well as the nearest elliptical galaxy to us. The lenticular galaxy above M105 is NGC 3384. It, too, is a member of the Leo I group along with the other notable galaxies in the group, M95 and M96 (not shown). The spiral galaxy at the top is NGC 3389. Whlie it appears to be a group member, it is actually at twice the distance of M105 and NGC 3384. As such, it is not one of the cluster members.

In this photo, North is to the right. This image is cropped to 60% of the original full frame.

Exposure Details
Lens Celestron C-8 SCT with Celestron focal reducer
Focal Length 1160mm
Focal Ratio f/5.8
 
Mount Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2 inch Byers gear
Guiding ONAG On-Axis Guider, Lodestar autoguider, PHD Guiding
 
Camera Canon 450D - Gary Honis modified (Baader Mod)
Exposure 130 subexposures of 300 seconds each at ISO 1600 - just under 11 hours total
Calibration 30 darks, 30 flats, 30 bias
 
Date February 10 and 11, 2013
Temperature 25F on both nights
SQM Reading 21.4 (Bortle 4) on 2/10, 21.7 (Bortle 3) on 2/11
Seeing 3 of 5 on 2/10, 4/5 on 2/11
Location Pine Mountain Club, California
 
Software Used Images Plus 5.0 for camera control, calibration, stacking, digital development, star shrinking, smoothing and noise reduction, advanced Lucy-Richardson deconvolution, and multiresolution sharpening. Photoshop CS5 used for levels and curves, high pass filter, star shrinking, screen mask invert, lab color, saturation adjustments, selective color. Gradient Xterminator for gradient removal. Carboni Tools for additional noise reduction, and smoothing. HLVG for additional color correction. Registar for aligning stacks and composites and for color channel alignment. Focus Magic for focus restoration.
Notes While this isn't the most exciting field of view, I was happy with the details I was able to capture in NGC 3389. There's also some nice background galaxies in the images, which adds a bit to its appeal.