Esprit 100ED
The Leo Triplet is a small group of galaxies about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. This galaxy group consists of the spiral galaxies M65, M66, and NGC 3628. The three galaxies in the M66 Group have all been affected by gravitational interactions with each other. This is evident in the deformed, drawn out spiral arms of M66 that are experiencing a high rate of star forming activity and in the warped, inflated disk of NGC 3628. With a prominent tidal tail consisting mainly of young blue stars, NGC 3628 seems to be the most affected of the three, while M65 appears to have suffered the least damage from the interaction. The tidal tail of NGC 3628 spans over 300,000 light years, but is very faint and does not always appear in images of the galaxy.
