Heavenly Triplets

My photograph of a tranche of sky between the constellations Leo Major and Ursa Major.
The inset magnified image of the Leo Triplet of Galaxies was taken by the European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Survey Telescope (VST)

Apparently, the Triplet can be seen through binoculars but I've never been able to.  If the clouds ever part from over our backyard I will have a go at imaging the Triplet through my 127mm refracting telescope.

This is a computer enhanced enlargement of my photograph centred on the area of sky in which the Triplet is located.

The three arrowed  tiny red smudges of light represent the only photons  I managed to capture from these vast collections of stars 35 million light years distant from Earth.

The bright white star above and to the right of the Triplet is 73 Leo lying a mere 478 light years away. 73 Leo is a binary star approximately 130 times more bright than our own Sun.

The ESO VST image of the Leo Triplet M65, M66 and NGC 3628Image credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute