The Leo Triplet is a small group of spiral galaxies located roughly 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. It consists of NGC 3628, Messier 65, and Messier 66. Together they form a gravitationally interacting system within the larger Leo I Group.

Although each galaxy is its own individual structure, their mutual gravitational influence has shaped them, creating warped disks, extended tidal features, and spiral arms that have, in effect, been pulled out of shape.

NGC 3628 is sometimes nicknamed the Hamburger Galaxy. It has a thick central dust lane, which is made from cold material blocking starlight. It’s quite well known for having a large tidal tail, but I need a longer integration time to capture that.

M66 may be my favourite of the three. The gravitational influence of NGC 3628 is readily seen, and I think it’s quite easy to imagine invisible forces pulling at the spiral arms, bending them out of shape. This “mixing up” of material has led to intense areas of star formation within M66. Although my data is broadband, my Optolong L-Quad Enhance filter is pretty good at pulling out Hα, so these star-forming regions show up in my image as reddy-orange patches.