The Other Leo Trio or the Forgotten Arp (NGC 2964/2968/2970)

[Dan_Paris]

Hi,

here's an image of a lesser known trio of galaxies in Leo, NGC 2964/2968/2970, approximately 80 million light-years from us. There's a long tidal arm emanating from NGC 2968 (the middle one), although I didn't find much info about it. This group would certainly fit in the Arp catalog...

 

The tidal arm was difficult to bring out from the background given my imaging conditions (Bortle 7/8 suburban backyard and hazy sky). However the seeing conditions were rather good (median FWHM 1.85" after stacking).

 

First a crop on the trio (right click for full resolution):

 

Second the full FOV (the framing was chosen to include many PGC galaxies in the background)

 

Thanks for looking and clear skies,

 

Dan

 

Technical details

200/800 custom Newtonian astrograph with Romano Zen optics and carbon fiber tube
AP900 CP4 mount on Losmandy HD tripod

ASI183mm (0.66"/pix)
TS 2.5" Riccardi-Wynne corrector
ZWO LRGB filters
Guiding : ZWO OAG + ASI120mm mini + AsiairV1
Luminance : 348 *60sec
Chrominance : 30*60sec for each R, G and B filter
Conditions : Bortle 7/8 skies in Paris' suburbs (20km from the Eiffel tower), good seeing, low transparency
Processing with Pixinsight

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Dan_Paris

[glafnazur]

That's a new group for me,  thanks for sharing. Loads of faint fuzzies in there, nice image 👍

[Dan_Paris]

Thanks @glafnazur !

 

On 22/02/2023 at 23:54, glafnazur said:

That's a new group for me,

It is indeed not very well-known  (just 6 images on Astrobin overall), I discovered it only few days before taking this picture.