Tag Archives: M31

The Triangulum Galaxy (M33)

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Triangulum Galaxy (M33)

The Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is the third largest member of our Local Group.

  • Telescope: Stellarvue SVA130T-IS
  • Mount: Losmandy G-11 with Gemini 2 controller
  • Autoguiding: Yes
  • Optical Configuration: 0.72x field flattener & reducer (f/5)
  • Camera: Canon 60Da
  • Light Frames: 24, 5-min. exposures
  • Calibration: None (no darks, no flats, no biases)
  • Exposure Time: 120 min. (24 x 5 min.)
  • ISO: 800
  • Processing: Photoshop CC
  • Imaging Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains (Altitude: 8,600 ft)

On a very dark and clear autumn night, a sharp eye can spot the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) high in the sky in the constellation Triangulum. At a distance of 3 million light-years, it is one of the farthest objects that can be seen with the naked eye.

The Triangulum Galaxy lives right next door to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) in the constellation Andromeda, which is the largest member of our Local Group of galaxies that includes Andromeda (#1), our galaxy the Milky Way (#2), and Triangulum (#3). Altogether, our Local Group contains more than 54 galaxies.

The Triangulum Galaxy spans about 60,000 light-years and may contain 40 billion stars, which is about one tenth the number of stars in our galaxy.

[For Tom, whose artful words live on.]

The Andromeda Galaxy

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The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

  • Telescope: Stellarvue SVA130T-IS
  • Mount: Losmandy G-11 with Gemini 2 controller
  • Autoguiding: Yes (sub-arcsecond rms accuracy)
  • Optical Configuration: 0.72x field flattener & reducer (f/5)
  • Camera: Canon 60Da
  • Light Frames: 12, 5-min. exposures stacked
  • Calibration: None (no darks, no flats, no biases)
  • Exposure Time: 60 min. (12 x 5 min.)
  • ISO: 800
  • Processing: Photoshop CC
  • Imaging Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains (Altitude: 8,600 ft.)

The  Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is about 2 1/2 times larger than our Milky Way and contains an estimated 1 trillion stars. At a distance of 2.5 million light-years, it is our nearest galactic neighbor and getting closer to us every day at nearly 70 miles per second. But even at that speed, our galaxy won’t collide with Andromeda for at least another 4 billion years. So don’t hold your breath.