Hard to believe that Leo is already returned to our night skies but the lion is rapidly gaining ground. The winter season tends to be full of galaxies as opposed to the nebulae in summer, and Leo is full of them. One target that I look forward to observing, both visually as well as CCD imaging, is the "Leo Triplet" of galaxies, M65 - M66 - NGC 3628. These make a fine show either as a trio or individually.
Leo also has some interesting stars, including the mighty Regulus. Here is a spectrum of Regulus that I took on Christmas Eve - actually it was already Christmas Day here in Tucson when I obtained this data. Click here to see a larger version with additional information. It's a low resolution spectrum, covering the majority of the visual range of human perception. With blue to the left and red to the right, it's easy to see from this spectrum why Regulus glows with a brilliant bluish hue. In an eyepiece Regulus can be seen as a nice double, the faint companion being far enough away to be visible even though Regulus shines so brightly.
This is the first of many spectra that I have obtained in recent months to be processed. I've been working on restructuring the Spectroscopy pages on the Xanadu website and hope to populate them with many more spectra in the very near future. New Year's Resolution in action!
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