Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Triangulum (Tri)  ·  Contains:  M 33  ·  NGC 595  ·  NGC 598  ·  NGC 604  ·  Triangulum Galaxy  ·  Triangulum Pinwheel
M33 the Triangulum Galaxy, Andrew Arai
M33 the Triangulum Galaxy
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M33 the Triangulum Galaxy

M33 the Triangulum Galaxy, Andrew Arai
M33 the Triangulum Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M33 the Triangulum Galaxy

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Description

The Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is the third largest galaxy in the Local Group after the Andromeda Galaxy and our Milky Way Galaxy.(1)(2) Although M33 is relatively bright (magnitude 5.7) that light is spread out over over an area of the sky about 3.25 times larger than a full moon making M33 about 150 times less bright per area than the full moon.(3) A few days prior to imaging M33, I observed the galaxy with some friends through the same telescope at very low magnification (34x) in a wide field eyepiece able to see a 2.4 degree field of view at a dark site . It was also quite obvious through the 50 mm finder scope. What catches my attention is that M33 had a visually oval appearance with relatively distinct edges. This appearance is quite different from the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) where the visual appearance is dominated by the bright core of the galaxy and the edges fade away indistinctly, often quite far from the photographically detected borders.

I was at a recognized Dark Sky site, Wupatki National Monument, for this imaging session with probably Bortle 2 skies. There were a few clouds which appeared black against the sky, a sign of very low light pollution. Otherwise the sky seemed very dark and transparent to me. I lost several exposures to focus imperfections and two due to motion from sudden strong wind gusts. As always, more imaging time would help a lot.

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M33 the Triangulum Galaxy, Andrew Arai