M65 & M66 (NGC 3623 & 3627), in Leo

M66 (left) and M65 (right) are two of the important galaxies in Leo. They are fairly small objects about 35 million lightyears away and require a long focal length to detect much detail. This image was captured on a night of very poor seeing, so the detail is not there, but it is clear that these are spiral galaxies with some irregular features in M66 and a dark dust lane in M65 (just to the left of the nucleus).

Date	19 May 2001
Scope	12.5 inch RCOS Ritchey-Chretien on Astro-Physics 1200GTO mount
Exposure	Two 30 minute @ f9; one 30 minute @ f6.75 on Fuji NHG 800 film; no filters
Processing	Register and average-combine in RegiStar; levels, blur, and unsharp mask in Photoshop