Galaxy in Leo
M65
The tidy one of the Leo Triplet. Both its neighbours have been visibly knocked about by the encounter between them, and this one, for no reason anybody can point to, came through unmarked.
It is a tightly wound spiral seen at a steep angle, with a dust lane along the near edge and very little star formation anywhere — an old, quiet disc. That is the puzzle rather than an explanation: a galaxy that sat through the same encounter as the other two and apparently kept its gas and its shape.
- Catalogue
- M65
- Type
- Galaxy
- Constellation
- Leo
- Distance
- 35 million light-years
- Apparent magnitude
- 9.3
- Surface brightness
- 20.9 mag/□″
- Apparent size
- 8′ × 2′
- Right ascension
- 11h 19m
- Declination
- +13.08°
- Found by
- Charles Messier, 1780
Small enough that its 9.3 magnitudes arrive concentrated rather than smeared: 20.9 per square arcsecond, which is why it stands out from the sky better than its brightness alone suggests. Why surface brightness is the number that matters.
Could you see it?
Straightforward with 10×50 binoculars from Bortle 5.
| Sky | Eye | 10×50 | 80mm | 130mm | 200mm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1 21.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 2 21.7 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 3 21.4 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 4 20.9 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 5 20.3 mag/□″ | No | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Bortle 6 19.3 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| Bortle 7 18.6 mag/□″ | No | No | Challenge | Challenge | Challenge |
| Bortle 8 18.1 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
| Bortle 9 17.8 mag/□″ | No | No | No | No | No |
At the eyepiece
The neat one of the three, seen nearly edge-on with an even, elongated glow and a distinct core. All three of the Leo Triplet fit in one low-power field at around 150mm, and doing it that way is much better than visiting them separately.
When, and from where
Highest in the middle of the night in March. Passes overhead at 13°N and rises from everywhere except the far south — below 77°S it never clears the horizon.
| Latitude | Highest it gets | |
|---|---|---|
| 60°N Oslo, Anchorage | 43° | |
| 51°N London, Calgary | 52° | |
| 40°N New York, Madrid | 63° | |
| 30°N Cairo, Houston | 73° | |
| 0°N the equator | 77° | |
| 33°S Sydney, Cape Town | 44° |
Nearby in the sky
The whole catalogue →One more of the catalogue sits within five degrees, close enough to take in on the same night without moving far. Everything below is measured from M65 itself, not from the middle of Leo.
- M66 Galaxy 20′ apart Leo · magnitude 8.9 · binoculars from Bortle 6 or darker
- M105 Galaxy 7.6° apart Leo · magnitude 9.3 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M96 Galaxy 7.9° apart Leo · magnitude 9.2 · binoculars from Bortle 5 or darker
- M95 Galaxy 8.6° apart Leo · magnitude 9.7 · binoculars from Bortle 4 or darker
One of 110. Positions J2000; the sky is the final authority.