The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum.
It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC (New General Catalogue) 598. With the D25 isophotal diameter of 18.74 kiloparsecs (61,100 light-years).
The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.
The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group (although the smaller Large and Small Magellanic Clouds may have been spirals before their encounters with the Milky Way).
And is believed to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy or on its rebound into the latter due to their interactions, velocities, and proximity to one another in the night sky.
It also has an H II nucleus. [Source: Wikipedia].
There is a very extensive description of the object on the M33 Wikipedia website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulum_GalaxyCapture Information:
The image was captured with the iOptron CEM120 mount, the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT OTA, and my QHYCCD QHY294m Pro mono CMOS camera at F7.16 (2182mm FL).
Astronomik's Ha narrow band, along with Luminance, Red, Green and Blue broad band filters were used.
Image Information -- 2023 & 2024
LUM : 65 subs (5.42hr) on Dec 16th, 17th and 18th 2023 and Jan 1st and 8th 2024.
RED : 40 subs (3.33hr) on Dec 16th and 18th 2023.
GRN : 40 subs (3.33hr) on Dec 16th, 18th and 30th 2023 and Jan 1st 2024.
BLU : 40 subs (3.33hr) on Dec 30th and 31st 2023.
Ha : 40 subs (3.33hr) on Dec 31st 2023 and Jan 1st 2024.
All exposures were at 5 minutes (300s) each, 1600 gain, 56 offset, 1x1 bin and -10C.
Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) Kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th from several years back.
Luminance was generated using only subs from the LUM filter.
R, G and B were collected for the color mix.
This effort was done as a two panel Mosaic. Each of the two subs group of above listed filter groups were individually integrated, and then assembled using PixInsights mosaic processes.
The two assembled panels were then combined for color, using PixiInsight’s “ChannelCombination”, and then added to the processed monocromatic Lum image.
I used the technique presented on Harry's Astroshed site for adding the H alpha (Ha) images to the red images.
You can see in the finished product where the isolated Hydrogen Alpha features are prominent in red.
North is to the .. who knows.
This is a moderate crop due to the necessities of the process.
Comments:
This is the 3rd time I’ve run at this target.
The first was in May of 2011 with my Meade 12”LX200 fork mount, using the Canon XSi Mod DSLR.
There also appears to be one made using the TMB80SS refractor.
The second was in early (or late ??) 2015 with my Meade 12”LX200 fork mount, using the Atik 383L+mono CCD camera.
It’s becoming more difficult to track some of the early targets and their respective equipment.
This time we’re on the iOptron CEM120 mount, using the QHY294 pro mono cmos camera.
I’m very pleased with the results this time.
ONE LAST THING:
My equipment has struggled recently to produce a night of subs without some unplanned stoppage.
Lately the Microtouch focuser has chosen to stop functioning at random times.
This invariably results in lost subs, or at least, lost production.
I not totally certain the problem lies with the focuser system. It may be the antique desktop used to run this menagerie of diverse equipment.
Comments