The Triangulum Galaxy from a Backyard (M33)

The Triangulum Galaxy — Messier 33 — is a face-on spiral about 2.7 million light-years away, in the little constellation of Triangulum. It’s a member of our Local Group and, under a properly dark sky, one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye. Its arms are strung with pink clouds where new stars are being born.

This one came together over two nights from the backyard — and the video walks through the whole thing, from the raw frames all the way to the finished image.

Acquisition

• Scope: 8″ f/5 Newtonian (1000 mm)
• Camera: one-shot-colour CMOS (IMX183), gain 200, no filter
• Mount: tracking EQ mount, autoguided with PHD2
• Capture: N.I.N.A. on a Windows 11 laptop
• Subs: 106 × 90 s @ gain 200 — ~2.65 h over 2 nights (5–6 Sep 2025)
• Calibration: master darks + bias (no flats)

Processing

• Review & cull frames, then auto-arrange into Siril’s folder structure
• Stack with the Mono_Preprocessing (no-flat) script — calibrate, register, integrate
• Crop → background extraction → plate solve → SPCC colour calibration
• Veralux auto-stretch → curve corrections
• Sharpened in Seti Astro Cosmic Clarity, with a second DeepSkyStacker run blended in

🐺 And supervising the whole operation, as always — the original astro husky, Bruno.

The 60-second version

⚠️ The narration voice and the on-screen presenter (“Tara”) are AI-generated. The astrophotography is entirely my own.

Clear skies. 🌌