Galaxies

A galaxy is a collection of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter held together by gravity. There are four main types of galaxies; spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, irregular galaxies, and lenticular galaxies, which are often classified based on their appearance.

the pinwheel galaxy

There are many bright galaxies you can photograph from your backyard using a camera and telescope. If you are new to astrophotography and/or have a modest telescope (in terms of size and aperture), start with the brightest galaxies in the night sky and take long-exposure images using a camera on an equatorial telescope mount.

In the astrophotography community, the early spring is referred to as galaxy season, thanks to a large number of galaxies being available to observe and photograph in the night sky at that time.

M33 Galaxy – The Triangulum Galaxy

M33 Galaxy – The Triangulum Galaxy

The Triangulum Galaxy The M33 Galaxy is the third-largest galaxy in the local-group of galaxies, behind the Milky Way and Andromeda.  Its large size from our vantage point makes my wide-field astrophotography 80mm telescope a great choice for imaging this target. Despite it’s size, the Triangulum Galaxy appears much dimmer than M31 – The Andromeda…

Capturing M81 and M82 with an 80mm Telescope

This post was originally published in March 2012, when I was still learning how to use my astrophotography equipment. I was starting to see some promising results using the Explore Scientific ED80 refractor and my Celestron CG-5 GoTo mount. More importantly, the lessons I learned from Jerry Lodriguss were beginning to sink in and my…