The Triangulum Galaxy | M33

The Triangulum Galaxy is part of our local group of nearby galaxies. It is ~only~ 2.7 million light years away from us. It is the third largest after our Milky Way and then Andromeda. The Triangulum Galaxy faces us head on so it is not as bright as Andromeda which shines nearly 8 times as bright. I could not make it out in my telescope, only after a long exposure could I see it on my LCD screen.

 

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s at f/4

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

 

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

42 x 211" for 2 hours 47 min and 13sec of exposure time.

7 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Guided

 

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

 

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32 bit file and used Gradient XT on the image. I then made it a 16 bit file and stretched in level, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to keep the background space black. I did use layer masks to bring out the color in the galaxy without making the stars look like christmas lights. I then using my skillset and relyed on Astronomy Tools Action Set, and dodging and burning a bit to give the image the finishing touches.

Done