Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader Mod
43x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
APM/TMB 130/780 Refractor with AP flattener

Messier 66 (NGC 3627, Arp 16) is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 36 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1780. M66 is about 96 thousand light-years across with striking dust lanes and bright star clusters along sweeping spiral arms.

Messier 66 exhibits a remarkable central bulge. This galaxy shows several anomalies, deviations from "perfect" spiral structure, which can be observed in many galaxies, notably a crack in one of its spiral arms at the lower end of the bright central region and a wave-away of the spiral arm visible left in this image. This is very probably a result of its gravitational interactions with its neighbors M65 and NGC 3628.

March 28, 2008