A stunning image of a 'barely visible' galaxy with 40 billion stars was photographed from Abu Dhabi on Friday, October 4.
In a recent social media post, the UAE's Astronomy Centre shared a stunning image of the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), a spiral galaxy in the Triangle constellation, as captured by the Al-Khatim Astronomical Observatory.
This distant wonder is 2.7 million light-years away, making it the second closest integrated galaxy to us. To put that in perspective, it takes light about 61,000 years to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. This galaxy is home to around 40 billion stars and is the third largest in our local group, right behind the Milky Way and Andromeda.
Interestingly, this galaxy is barely visible to the naked eye, even in complete darkness, which makes it the most distant celestial object we can see without a telescope. The image shared by the Astronomy Centre shows numerous small red spots, which are dense clouds of hydrogen gas where new stars are currently forming.
The image captured by the Al-Khatim Astronomical Observatory is a composite of 215 individual photos, each taken over two minutes, that added up to an exposure time of 7 hours and 12 minutes.
The image was taken using an 80mm refracting telescope equipped with a light pollution filter, which helped reveal such a detailed view of this distant celestial wonder.
