… in a galaxy far far away.
Rumor has it the Triangulum Galaxy is the inspiration for a famous movie galaxy. It is indeed far far away at 3.2 million light years, but in cosmic scales, it’s actually one of the galaxies closest to our own Milky Way galaxy, and the third largest galaxy in our “local group”, which includes our home the Milky Way, and the Andromeda Galaxy. When the light I captured with a telescope left this galaxy, my home state of Florida was underwater and the Earth was much warmer than it is today, with almost no ice cover in the northern hemisphere. Also cataloged as M33, this galaxy is an amazing and beautiful spiral galaxy with active star forming regions, knots of pinkish glowing hydrogen gas, and dust lanes that extend almost all the way into the core. Perhaps some Jedi too.
Technical Details: I used a remote system I helped setup with two friends at Falling Eagle Observatory. It sports a Paramount MX+, a ZWO 6200 monochrome camera, and a Sky-Watcher Esprit 150 refracting telescope. I took 9 hours of 5 minute unguided images using clear, red, green, and blue filters.
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