I have completed several images of the famous Triangulum Galaxy – M33, over the years. This is one of the most photographed objects in the sky and with good reason; it is a beautiful face on spiral galaxy that is the second closest major galaxy after Andromeda. It is bright and colourful and responds well to all types of imaging, whether with a DSLR or CCD, camera lens or telescope. It is probably the second “go to” target to photograph for astro photography beginners after the Andromeda galaxy.
The image below is a version captured with the TEC 140 refractor and Atik 460 CCD camera and is the total of about 12 hours of LRGBHa data captured from my backyard observatory in Nottingham, UK in 2018. You can see it fills the frame very nicely.
Image Technical Data
Image acquired spring 2018 and 2019 seasons over several capture sessions due to very wet and persistent cloudy weather) in my backyard in Nottingham, UK. It was acquired with TEC 140 refractor with Atik 460 CCD camera and Baader HaLRGB filters on my MESU 200 mount. Guiding was via off-axis guider.
A modest data set with everything binned 1×1 so as not to need so much luminance so a bit of an experiment! Did it work?
Luminance 10 x 300s 1×1; Red 9x 300s 1×1; Green 10x 300s 1×1; Blue 9x 300s 1×1; Ha 12 x 900s 1×1
Data processed with PixInsight and Photoshop and data collected with SGP Pro and guided with PHD2.
Here is another version of M33 with a wider field FSQ85 refractor:
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