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M65

Messier 65
Spiral Galaxy
Right Ascension 11h 18m 55s Best Seen 4/1-7/15
Declination 13° 05' 32" Magnitude 9.3
Constellation Leo

Actual		 Compared
to Milky Way
Distance 35 million ly --
Actual Brightness 20 billions suns --
Diameter ~50,000 ly ~0.5
Mass -- --
Galactic Type Sa Sbc

What To Look For Through The Telescope

  1. Recommended eyepiece: 40mm or 80 mm.

  2. When people look through the telescope they should see a patch of fuzzy light. This is the galaxy. If they are having trouble seeing it, have them look at a star near the edge of the field and then look back to the center out of the corner of their eye.

  3. The view through the telescope will not look like photographs they may have seen. A photograph of a galaxy may have an exposure of many hours. This long exposure brings out spiral arms and other details. Our eyes allow the light to collect for only about 1/30 of a second before they refresh themselves and start over again.

M65 Information

  1. This galaxy was discovered in 1780 by Pierre Méchain. However, Charles Messier didn’t acknowledge his friend’s prior discovery, unlike for most of Méchain’s findings. Messier catalogued it on March 1, 1780.

  2. Three galaxies – M65, M66, and NGC 3628 – are all about 35 million light years away. Together, they are called the Leo Triplett.
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References
Item Updated Notes
Coordinates 2003-01-15 tweaked a bit with SIMBAD: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=M65&submit=SIMBAD+search and SEDs: http://messier.seds.org/m/m065.html
Distance 2003-01-15 previously: 29-38 million ly – BUT this OK with SEDs http://messier.seds.org/m/m065.html
Actual Brightness 2003-01-15 can find no support, but looks OK
Diameter 2003-01-15 previously said 60 thousand ly – BUT can find no support, but SEDs site says M66 is “considerably lager” than M65... leaving it like this, OK for now
Mass --
Galactic Type 2003-01-15 previously: Sb – BUT this OK with SEDs
Other Information 2003-01-15 previously: “M65 and M66 are about 180,000 light years away from each other.” – BUT, found do direct support, so summarized and added PLEASE NOTE at several places they really DO spell it “Triplett,” instead of “Triplet.”