The Pinwheel Galaxy

Object: Messier 33, NGC 598/604
Type: Galaxy
Distance: 2.3 million light years
Constellation: Triangulum
Date: 24 October 2008
Equipment: SXV-H9, Vixen ED114 refractor (f.l. 600mm)
Subframes: 40 x 120 second 2x2 binned subframes, 16 darks, 16 flats/flat darks, calibrated and stacked in AIP4Win.

From last Friday's moon, cloud and dew-free evening (two within a couple of days - you can bet that'll be it for a while now), I was taken aback by how much of the outlying areas of this old favourite appeared upon image processing, given the relatively short exposures (click on the above to enlarge). I have clearly got the framing of the image about 90º out, as the faint outer edges of the galaxy are just off frame. Rotating the camera would have filled the field a bit better.

I plan to revisit M33 soon using RGB/H alpha filters, for an extended project to try and grab a colour image in a bid to finally produce something along the lines of Richard Best's image here. I particularly like this one as other images I have seen of this object have either burnt-out cores, or have garishly exaggerated the numerous H-alpha regions that are within M33's spiral arms.