The Triangulum Galaxy | M33

I spent Sunday night setting up my scope again, aligning it, and tracking the Triangulum Galaxy. The Triangulum Galaxy lies ~2.7 million light years away from Earth and is part of our local group of galaxies. It lies in the constellation Triangulum, from where it gets its name. Charles Messier cataloged it first in 1764. He published his Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters in 1771 and listed it as object number 33, hence the name M33.

 

Equipment:

SkyWatcher EQ6-R

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

ZWO 30mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

 

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my front yard - Bortle 3

28 x 301" for 2 hours, 26 min, and 56 sec exposure time.

3 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Guided

 

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

Lightroom

 

My Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S were mounted on an ADM vixen rail and secured to the SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount. I polar aligned my mount using SharpCap Pro. The guide scope/camera was attached to the camera's hot shoe. I used PHD2 to autogude during the imaging session. DeepSkyStacker was used to combine all frames, and then I 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 continued to stretch the file in levels, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to help keep colors accurate. I then used my skillset, including some dodging & burning, and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set and Topaz Denoise to give the image a polished look. I brought it into Lightroom to do final color corrections and add EXIF data.

Done