NGC 3628- is located in the southern constellation of Leo. It is one of the members of the well know 'Leo Triplet' of galaxies and is thought to be a spiral galaxy edge on. It's visual brightness is that of mag. 9.5 but it is really quite faint and needs plenty of time to bring out details. Smaller visual scopes would find it difficult to locate amongst its brighter neigbours M65 & M66. The dark dust lanes block out the brighter central core and hide the younger blue stars that would normally be visible in a typical spiral galaxy's arms. The distortion to the arms is believed to be the effect of gravitational forces exerted on it by m65 & M66. Ngc 3628  lies approximately 35 million light years away.

- This has been one of those objects I have wanted to image for a long time. It is due to my location, being well south and also the weather conditions here in summer that have generally kept me from imaging this. The luminance data was taken when we had 19 days straight of 40*C plus days, so the nights were in the high 20*C range generally. As this object is in my immediate north, and doesn't get higher than 43degs in altitude, tends to have me imaging very low into Australia's cooling heart. Not good when trying to glean good details from a faint object. plays havoc with guiding that's for sure!