A dusty beauty

NGC 3627, also known as Messier 66, i.e. it is the 66th object in the famous catalogue of nebulae by French astronomer Charles Messier (1730 - 1817). It is located in the constellation Leo (The Lion).

NGC 3627 is a beautiful spiral with a well-developed central bulge. It also displays large-scale dust lanes. Many regions of warm hydrogen gas are seen throughout the disc of this galaxy. The latter regions are being ionised by radiation from clusters of newborn stars. Very active star-formation is most likely also occurring in the nuclear regions of NGC 3627.

The galaxy forms, together with its neighbours M 65 and NGC 3628, the so-called "Leo Triplet" ; they are located at a distance of about 35 million light-years. M 66 is the largest of the three. Its spiral arms appear distorted and displaced above the main plane of the galaxy. The asymmetric appearance is most likely due to gravitational interaction with its neighbours.

This photo of the spiral galaxy M 66 (or NGC 3627) was obtained with the FORS1 and FORS2 multi-mode instruments (at VLT MELIPAL and YEPUN, respectively) on December 16-18, 2001. It is a composite of three exposures in different wavebands. North is towards upper left, West towards upper right.

Credit:

ESO/P. Barthel

About the Image

Id:eso0338c
Type:Observation
Release date:19 December 2003
Related releases:eso0338
Size:4961 x 4965 px

About the Object

Name:Messier 66, NGC 3627
Type:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Distance:35 million light years
Constellation:Leo
Category:Galaxies

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4.4 MB
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Coordinates

Position (RA):11 20 15.07
Position (Dec):12° 59' 28.00"

Colours & filters

BandTelescope
Optical
B
Very Large Telescope
Optical
V
Very Large Telescope
Optical
R
Very Large Telescope