My latest image,
Say Hello to our little “Sister” M33 —- You are going to want to put this up “Full Screen”
Like Andromeda, M33 Triangulum Spiral Galaxy is one of our sister galaxies too, part of our local group.
The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. 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. M33 is about 60,000 light years in diameter.
Latest observations of the M33 galaxy by the European Southern Observatory revealed that it is approaching the Milky Way Galaxy at about 62,000 mph (100,000 kph).
Some astronomers believe that Triangulum is “gravitationally trapped” by the massive Andromeda Galaxy that is also hurtling toward our galaxy.
No worries, they won’t reach us for another 6 billion years.
M33 is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye from a dark location.
Most references claim it to be 5.7 magnitude, within reach of the human eye, although due to its lower surface brightness can make it a challenge to see naked eye near cities, and is much easier to see in binoculars or a telescope from a dark site.
I love the detail I captured in this shot, with all the dark dust lanes & many pink nebula(HII regions/star formation areas) and bright young hot blue star clusters
dot the spirals arms. Yes, We are looking at Nebulae in another galaxy, …after you check out all amazing details in the spiral arms of M33, go hunt for all the little background galaxies in my image too! That was a bonus!
Unfortunately I managed only 83 minutes worth of data before the high cirrus clouds rolled in and killed my session. Despite the clouds, I’m very pleased with the results, the rare 1 arc/sec seeing and transparency were pretty stable while it lasted.
Captured details:
Captured on 01-03-2022 from my observatories at JBSPO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
TPO 12 inch F4 Newtonian telescope, Baader III Coma Corrector, Pegasus Focus Cube, Bisque ME Mount, & HAP modified Canon 6D DSLR, ISO 800, L-Pro Filter
83 x 1 minute sub exposures, 83 minute total integration time.
The SKY X(64bit), Canon Utility Software, Dark & Sky Flat calibrations in Deep Sky Stacker, Post processing in Nebulosity, Pixinsight, Adobe CS 2022.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
