Using my new 6" Newtonian Telescope I revisited the galaxies in Leo that I imaged back in my early years of astrophotography. Although the star definition has still some room for improvement, the picture reveals much more detail than the film-based result. One of the galaxies I checked is just 20.5m on the astronomical luminosity scale, being as faint compared to the bright planets as they are compared to our sun!
The three major galaxies are part of a small group of galaxies some 30 million light years away in the direction of the virgo cluster. However, probably this group does not belong to the vast crowd of star islands that is to be imaged soon.