M33 is a galaxy about 2.8 – 3 million light years away in the constellation of Triangulum. Along with M33, it is one of the Local Group of galaxies with which our own Milky Way galaxy shares the local universe. M33 is the most distant object that the human naked eye can see, appearing as a ghostly white smudge on a very dark night from clear skies. It is a magnificent spiral galaxy about half the size of our own galaxy.
I’ve imaged the galaxy multiple times. For example, with the same FSQ85 telescope here and also at a closer image scale with the TEC140 refractor here.
This time I have set the galaxy in a slightly wider field by utilising the FSQ85 0.73 reducer. I used the Moravian G2-8300 CCD camera and Astrodon RGB filters all binned 1×1. I did not use a separate luminance channel.
Data collected from my backyard observatory in Nottingham UK on 4/5 and the 8th of November and is a modest data set of 15 x 300s exposures in each of the three filters. However, because of the proximity of M33 this modest data set has revealed a pleasing result. What do you think?
Image data captured with NINA software and processed mostly in PixInsight with a couple of tweaks in Photoshop.
