Target Details
The Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33, is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy and about 44 other smaller galaxies. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.
With a diameter of about 60,000 light-years, the Triangulum galaxy is the third largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, roughly 40% the size of the Milky Way. It may be a gravitationally bound companion of the Andromeda Galaxy. Triangulum may be home to 40 billion stars, compared to 400 billion for the Milky Way, and 1 trillion stars for Andromeda Galaxy.
Estimates of the distance to the Triangulum galaxy range from 2.38 to 3.07 Mly, with most estimates since the year 2000 lying in the middle portion of this range, making it slightly more distant than the Andromeda Galaxy.
In the upper left corner you can see a very faint galaxy. I can't find much information on it other than its designator which is '2MASS J01350881+3102189'.
Capture Details
Data captured across 10 nights between 3rd September & 16th October, 2018.
Imaged as a 1x2 Mosaic.
99x 2 minute exposures with Blue filter (Binned 2x2).
101x 2 minute exposures with Green filter (Binned 2x2).
97x 2 minute exposures with Red filter (Binned 2x2).
246x 3 minute exposures with Luminance filter.
Total Exposure = 22.2 hours.
Equipment Details
Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 428EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II
Processing Details
This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.
Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight using Batch PreProcessing
Dynamic Crop - To remove black edges & integration artifacts. (Each Channel & Pane)
Dynamic Background Extraction - To remove gradients. (RGB & Lum separately)
Channel Combination - To combine RGB channels.
Photometric Colour Calibration - To calibrate colours (Each Pane separately).
SCNR - To remove green cast (Each Pane separately).
Deconvolution - To bring out some fine detail & tighten stars, 50 iterations. (Luminance only, each Pane separately)
LRGB Combination - To blend my luminance image with my RGB image.
Histogram Transformation - To align brightness of both panes.
Star Alignments & Gradient Merge Mosaic - To merge two panes into one image.
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the LRGB image.
TVGDenoise - To denoise background, with inverted rangemask.
Curves Transformation - To boost contrast.
Local Histogram Equalisation - To sharpen with mask in place to exclude stars & background.
Curves Transformation - To boost galacy brightness slightly, with starless range mask.
Curves Transformation - To boost saturation, with starless range mask.
Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.
Darken Shadows (-75)
Increase Red Saturation (+50)
Export final JPEG for upload.