This object, the Triangulum Galaxy, is the 2nd closest spiral galaxy to earth, approximately 3 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum. It is the third-largest member of our Local Group of galaxies, second only to our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. This galaxy has a diameter of about 60,000 light years and is estimated to contain 40 billion stars.
Because this galaxy is so close to us, the full resolution view shows many interesting objects within this galaxy. Star clusters, HII regions, and even nebulae are able to be seen. I like the patchy dark dust lanes spiraling in towards the core. The core of this galaxy is surprisingly diffuse.
This image was a bit of an experiment. I was happy with the
Tak 130 image that I captured back in 2020 and I wanted to see how the RASA result would compare using the same camera.
In my opinion, the RASA excels at imaging dim, large objects like extended nebulae. It struggles a bit with star clusters and large galaxies in comparison with refractors, simply because the resolution is usually not as crisp, plus the light gathering is not particularly needed.
The Tak 130 image has 3x the integration time. Based on the relative focal ratios (2.2 vs. 7.7), the RASA gathers light 12x faster. The image scale for the Tak 130 is 0.77 and for the RASA 11 is 1.25.
The image of
Revision C shows the comparison. The results are about what I expected. The Tak 130 image is better in terms of resolution and color. The RASA image illuminates the faint and dark areas a bit more, but that is not of much benefit here. I like the wider framing of the RASA FOV. Overall I think it is a tossup for this object - the Tak 130 image is a bit better to my eyes, but it took 3x longer to capture.
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