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Jorge,
always interesting and enjoyable to see images of M66 and M65 taken with a camera, as they have a different look to CCD images.
M66 in particular is quite an unusual galaxy, with one spiral arm looking broadened and "smeared out", compared to the other spiral arm which is narrow and normal in its appearance.
A reasonable interpretation of the three-dimensional geometry of the broad spiral arm is that it is lifted above the principal plane of M66 by tidal forces (perhaps from a previous encounter with NGC 3628)
Note also the blue spur or stub coming off the bar on its left side. I look at a lot of barred spirals and this feature is very unusual!! This somewhat linear feature, which resembles a supergiant star cloud, is much more blue than the rest of M66;
could it be a small galaxy??? or could the recent star formation in it have been set off by some other unusual process??!??!
cheers,
Robert
Radial features of any kind are very unusual in galaxies, hence my interest in the "blue spur". Dr William Keel (Univ. of Alabama) searched one or two thousand galaxies, and found very few. My own search for radial features also found only a few in the bright galaxy population.
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