The Leo Triplet of Galaxies and Beyond | European Southern Observatory

The Leo Triplet of Galaxies and Beyond | European Southern Observatory

A triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), together with a multitude of fainter objects—distant background galaxies and much closer Milky Way stars. The image hints at the power of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and OmegaCAM for surveying the extragalactic Universe and for mapping the low brightness objects of the galactic halo. This image is a composite created by combining exposures taken through three different filters. Light that passed through a near-infrared filter was colored red, light in the red part of the spectrum is colored green, and green light is colored magenta.

Credit: European Southern Observatory/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute

Release Date: July 27, 2011

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