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Monday, August 22, 2011

The Leo Triplet


Triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), together with a multitude of fainter objects: distant background galaxies and much closer Milky Way stars. The image hints at the power of the VST and OmegaCAM for surveying the extragalactic Universe and for mapping the low brightness objects of the galactic halo. This image is a composite created by combining exposures taken through three different filters. Light that passed through a near-infrared filter was colored red, light in the red part of the spectrum is colored green, and green light is colored magenta.

Photo credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute

Notes: For more information, see VST Looks at the Leo Triplet — and Beyond. The galaxy to the left is NGC 3628; opposite it to the right is Messier 66, and in the top right corner is Messier 65.

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