FIUCASE
Messier 33
Messier 33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy located 3 million light years away within in our Local Group. In the night sky, it can be found in the constellation Triangulum and can be seen in skies without light pollution, as the galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 5.7. With a diameter of about 60,000 light years, it happens to be the third largest Galaxy in the Local Group. For reference, the Milky Way Galaxy has about double that diameter and ten times the amount of stars that M33 has (400 billion to 40 billion). It was likely discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna prior to 1654. Charles Messier independently catalogued it as his 33rd object in 1746. The Triangulum Galaxy is special in several ways: for one, it does not contain a supermassive black hole. It also has a massive region of star formation known as NGC 604, which alone contains the third-most amount of young stars in our Local Group. This image is the result of four images, with one each from the red, green, blue, and illumination filters (exposed for 120 seconds). They were taken and reduced by Dr. Webb using the FIU Stocker AstroScience Center’s 24” telescope and were color combined by Daniel Puentes, Gabriel Salazar, and Debra Duval.
Messier 33
Messier 33, also known as the Triangulum Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy located 3 million light years away within in our Local Group. In the night sky, it can be found in the constellation Triangulum and can be seen in skies without light pollution, as the galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 5.7. With a diameter of about 60,000 light years, it happens to be the third largest Galaxy in the Local Group. For reference, the Milky Way Galaxy has about double that diameter and ten times the amount of stars that M33 has (400 billion to 40 billion). It was likely discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna prior to 1654. Charles Messier independently catalogued it as his 33rd object in 1746. The Triangulum Galaxy is special in several ways: for one, it does not contain a supermassive black hole. It also has a massive region of star formation known as NGC 604, which alone contains the third-most amount of young stars in our Local Group. This image is the result of four images, with one each from the red, green, blue, and illumination filters (exposed for 120 seconds). They were taken and reduced by Dr. Webb using the FIU Stocker AstroScience Center’s 24” telescope and were color combined by Daniel Puentes, Gabriel Salazar, and Debra Duval.