From Wikipedia: "The
Triangulum Galaxy is a
spiral galaxy 2.73 million
light-years (ly) from Earth in the
constellationTriangulum. It is catalogued as
Messier 33 or
NGC 598. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the
Local Group of galaxies, behind the
Andromeda Galaxy and the
Milky Way. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the
naked eye.
[6] 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,
[7] and proximity to one another in the night sky. It also has an
H IInucleus."
At my home backyard observatory, I have been lucky enough to have had a run of clear autumnal skies during the optimum moon cycle (and without my neighbour firing up his wood burning stove and so smokeless too
) to gather quality data for a deep look at Messier 33. The galaxy fill the FOV on my Atik One 9.0, and gives me my second image on this secondhand CCD I bought a few months ago. It has been enjoyable to process especially balancing the colour calibration from various attempts. In the end I opted for a blend of Photometric Colour Calibration and the Background neutralisation and Colour Calibration which helped preserve the core yellowy hues over the quite dominant blue stars of the spiral arms. The active Ha regions provide a strong signal and can easily dominate in the processing and had to be tamed so as not to appear somewhat artificial.
The end result is a deep look the galaxy and I encourage you to view the full resolution - once again I am amazed that a backyard amateur can capture such stellar detail in one of our Local Group.
Clear skies to all!
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