M33 The Triangulum Galaxy

This was a hard one to find indeed. You find yourself staring right at it but not aware that its there because your looking for the usual gray blob. Its a big galaxy and very faint so you need a very dark night with no moon or light pollution to be able to see it. For the first hour or so the moon was up and I just could not spot it. However after 12midnight it got lovely and dark and I was able to start photographing it. 78 shots at an ISO of 800 at 50seconds. Too tired and cold to do dark's and flats but it came out for a first attempt.

Focusing is difficult with a target like this because once you have found it with your eye piece in you dont want to move the telescope for fear of losing it again. So its a case of lock it and put the single motor axis on so you keep it in sight then put your camera on and do the following..

Take a photo on a fast ISO at about 6 seconds.

Take a look blurred or not there refocus and repeat until the stars are sharp and in focus. Use the zoom feature on your camera to zoom in on the picture until its all in focus.. Yes its a pain but its a bigger pain having to find the galaxy again..