M33 - is it the Pinwheel or ain't it...

[Guest]

I set out tonight to have a bash at M33 (which from what I understand is erroneously referred to as the Pinwheel Galaxy?) and wound up slightly disappointed with the results. This is 40min of data and I don't think I'll spend much more time on this but my disappointment was set to one side when I read about this object. That's what I like about astrophotography - it encourages me not to investigate oddities I see in the images such as the red fields in M33. So while it's not a jaw dropping image at least I've learned quite a bit about it's properties

...oh and of course it also means I can put the tick mark next to it in my list of messier objects...but that's not why I imaged it...really

[Guest]

..and now for the image...

[nmoushon]

For only 40min I think you got a good amount of data there! I wouldn't be disappointed at all. If I were you I'd go out and take at least another 40min of data. You'll see some improvement.

[RobH]

Not too bad at all for 40 minutes, I reckon you did well, and the focus is tight too.

40 mins is a very short time when imaging DSO's. To get really deep and avoid noise when stretching the image you need as much time as you can get.

I think that you hit the nail on the head about how astrophotography makes you look closely at objects.

Rob

[Quatermass]

nothing wrong with that one at all great image and its a faint fuzzy if ever there was one spent ages looking for it only to find out I was actually looking right at it all the time.