Astronomy

WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 55

telescope. The galaxy was described as tri-

angular shaped, and was held steady with

averted vision.

Galactic cannibals

Let’s dip farther south into the Lion’s mane

to 2nd-magnitude Algieba (Gamma [γ]

Leonis), near which we’ll find an amazing

galaxy gobbler. But first, keep your tele-

scope trained on Gamma Leonis, one of

the night sky’s finest binaries for telescopes

of all sizes. It’s amazingly beautiful, appear-

ing as two golden orbs: a 2nd-magnitude

reddish-orange primary with a lemon-

yellow 3rd-magnitude companion about 5"

away. At times, the secondary will take on a

more illusory aqua hue when seen at high

magnification; indeed, the 19th-century

observer William Henry Smyth saw the

companion as “greenish yellow.” You’ll have

to use your imagination to see the

10-Jupiter-mass exoplanet in its Earth-like

orbit around the primary.

When you’ve finished exploring Algieba,

poodle along just 30' to the east-northeast,

where you’ll find the interacting galaxies

NGC 3226 and NGC 3227. NGC 3227, the

larger and brighter of the two, is a peculiar

barred spiral that shines at 10th magnitude

and appears as a 7'-long ellipse, making it a

near twin in size to M108 in Ursa Major.

NGC 3226 is a 2'-wide, 11.5-magnitude

peculiar elliptical nipping the north-

northwestern rim of its larger neighbor. At

their union, a tiny bridge appears to con-

nect the two. (And I wonder what size tele-

scope is required to see that!)

I’ve spied the two easily through a 5-inch

refractor, but the real drama is reserved

for users of large-aperture telescopes

and astroimagers, as the two galaxies are

awash in the remains of a deceased third

galaxy — cannibalized by the gravity of

the visual pair.

High-resolution optical images with the

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in

Hawaii, combined with data from the

European Space Agency’s Herschel Space

Observatory and NASA’s Hubble and

Spitzer space telescopes, have revealed the

braided remains of the cannibalized galaxy,

whose gas and stars have been torn asunder

by gravitational forces. This extragalactic

detritus now describes a vast and ornate

series of loops and swirls around the two

visible members. How much of this detail

can be seen visually (and through what

size telescope) is something you can

isolated of its kind in the Local Group.

Lying about 2.5 million light-years away, it

appears as a featureless sphere of stars

bursting forth with relatively youthful stars

(around 90 percent of which are less than

8 billion years old), yet it shows no signs of

tidal interactions having taken place to

trigger new star formation.

Finding this cosmic puzzle will test

your visual mettle. The rub is that Leo III

is three magnitudes fainter than Leo I but

much smaller (5' by 3'), so its light is more

compact. You’ll find it about 1 ̊ south-

southwest of 5th-magnitude 20 Leo

Minoris in the Lion’s high mane (R.A.

9h59m26.4s; Dec. 30 ̊44'47"). The one

observation I’m aware of was made by a

South African observer using an 8-inch f/6

APM Wirth-Intes Maksutov Newtonian 86

Left: Regulus itself is a 1st-magnitude beacon

that hides two faint stars circling the bright

primary: a “violet” companion 3' away and

a fainter red dwarf 2.5' away. This telescopic

sketch captures all three stars and was made

with a 6-inch f/8 reflector at 240x. JEREMY PEREZ

Above: Leo I is a faint, challenging dwarf galaxy

that lies in our Local Group at a distance of about

800,000 light-years. It lies a short distance from

Leo’s brightest star, Regulus. BERNHARD HUBL

Gamma Leonis is

beautiful, appearing

as two golden orbs:

a reddish-orange

primary with

a lemon-yellow

companion.