Messier 33 - The Triangulum Galaxy - 2019 Version
Date: October 13, 2019
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0013
Messier 33 as captured by my William Optics 132mm Platform. (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
M33, also known as NGC 598, or more commonly known as either the Triangulum Galaxy, is located 2.73 Million Light Years away in the constellation Triangulum. It is the third-largest member of the local group of galaxies which includes M31 the Andromeda Galaxy, and our own Milky Way. It is a spiral form galaxy - once of the first spiral galaxies identified as such back in 1850. It is one of the most distant objects that can be seen with the unaided eye.
About the Project
I was up pretty late getting this one. But, as we get later in the year, new objects are in reach, and this galaxy finally got high enough to clear the trees on the east side of my property around midnight.
This Spiral Galaxy is 2.73 Million light-years away - close enough that it is part of a local group of galaxies that include the Great Andromeda Galaxy as well as our own. This was the first galaxy recognized as having a spiral form back in 1850 by Lord Rosse. I am pretty happy with how this came out, but I wish I had rotated the scope to get a slightly better framing. Next time! This resulted from 52 exposures of 180 seconds each, for a total of 156 minutes of integration time. I was going to grab more, but I was shut down by dew, which first blocked my tracking scope and then affected my main imaging scope.
Updated Comments 08-01-21 (as I publish this into the website):
This was not a bad image. The biggest problem is probably. the framing. Shortly after this was taken, I added an Image rotator and my compositions became more specific. Also, the fact that dew shut me down prematurely. Again, shortly after this, I added dew heater strips and never ran into this problem again. Finally, my sky levels were still too clipped!
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of M33 was created using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts. Note - this was the annotation for the most recent version of this image (2021) as the older one would not plate solve for some reason or another.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map of Triangulum with Messier 33 marked by the yellow arrow.
More Information
Wikipedia: Messier 33
The Sky Live: Messier 33
Capture Details
Light frames
52X x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C
Total integration time: 2.6 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded.
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, and much swearing…..
I was still learning to use the main rig, when I soon made my first modification. I was doing the Polar Alignment the old fashioned way - using an illuminated polar scope. This caused me to kneel down on the driveway and look up through the polar axis. This was killing my knees, my back and my neck! I hated it and I was sure I was not getting very good alignments with it…..