Leo II, a dwarf companion of the milky way, cropped to one degree field, 50% pixel view
click the image for a 100% pixel view or HERE to return to the index page

 

On the eastern edge of Leo, this relatively faint clump of stars (about 82,000 according to recent images with the 8.2 meter Subaru) is about
690,000 light years from us. Leo II or Leo B, is located about one degree SSW of 72 Leo, but don't go looking for it visually unless you have a lot
of scope.... the magnitude 12 is spread over about 12 arc minutes making it very hard to see. A 5 minute sub will give only a hint of anything, so study
the field and charts if you want to go looking. This image is a combination of three sessions: 71 three-minute subs and 42 five-minute subs. By the way,
it is quite hard to see the galaxy on a single sub, even after stretching. I used adaptive scaling alignment of the whole set of 113 subs after
matching histograms with a new tool in Nebulosity 2.2.7.

There are three minor planets in this image, one doesn't show in the 3 minute series, the other two near the top edge show both.. they had moved on for the third series.
The brighter almost directly above the galaxy is 768 Struviana, mag 15.5. Just above the left trail, parallel to the top edge is 2000 YX38 at magnitude 17.8.
The third MP is 2000 FN24 just below Leo II at magnitude 19.4, too faint to record in the three minute sub. The brighter edge-on spiral at about 11 oclock is UGC 06268, mag 16.
The faintest smudge, a face on spiral, is about 2 O'clock near the edge, a number only at mag. 20.8. Pretty good for a 6 inch I think.. note too the piece of tumbling junk across the top.

Telescope	Explore Scientific David H. Levy Comet Hunter Maksutov-Newtonian 152mm f/4.8 mounted piggyback on Meade LX 200 Classic 12 inch
Camera	Canon XT/350d modified with Baader type 1 filter by Hap Griffin
Exposure	42 five-minute sub-exposures at iso 1600 plus 71 three-minute subs at iso 1600, 7 hours 13 minutes
Guiding	PHD Guide from Stark labs with Meade DSI pro I on Meade 12-inch LX 200 Classic at f/3.3
Software	Images acquired, calibrated, stacked and color corrected with Nebulosity 2.2.7 from Stark Labs. Further processing in Photoshop CS 3.
on-line links to more information	for more information try Google for Leo II galaxy

Julian California, April 8th, 9th, and 13th, 2010 - copyright chuck kimball