dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (11/19/86)
A little triangle in the autumn sky -- Triangulum -- after this. November 19 Triangulum The Great Square of Pegasus is a large obvious square overhead in the evening -- and just east of it there's a little triangle of stars conveniently named Triangulum. The constellation Triangulum is one of the smallest in the sky. Its three stars are Alpha, Beta, and Iota -- located at distances of about 70, 140 and 200 light-years from Earth. These stars aren't particularly bright, but they're noticeable in a dark-enough sky for forming the shape of a small acute triangle. Triangulum is a very old constellation. It was once called Sicilia, after the island of Sicily. It's said that the goddess of the harvest, Ceres, begged the king of the gods, Jupiter, to reproduce the shape of the island in the sky. In more modern times, the first asteroid was discovered in Triangulum -- on New Year's Day in the year 1801. It was given the name Ceres to honor the constellation's patron goddess. The most famous feature of this constellation is barely visible. Some people have claimed to see it with the naked eye under ideal sky conditions. But even with binoculars or a small telescope, this object isn't easy to see -- despite the fact it consists of hundreds of billions of stars. It's a galaxy known as M33 -- the nearest spiral galaxy after M31, in the constellation Andromeda. M33 is about two and a half million light-years away. It's a member of our own Local Group consisting of our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, and several dozen more galaxies. M33 looks much less bright than the galaxy in Andromeda because it's less massive. Also, we see it at a different angle -- not edge-on, but from the top down. Photographs show its many stars, and its winding spiral arms. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin