Apod Entry 9/15/06

To the naked eye, this could be a foggy star. But M33 is actually a 50,000 lightyear diameter galaxy, Triangulum. Triangulum, part of the Local Group of galaxies in our universe that is home to our very own Milky Way, is the third largest of the group. In this wide field image, we can see areas of star formations as pink areas an newly created star regions as blue. Triangulus' variable star sizes make it a good "cosmic yardstick," or a calibration tool for galactic scales. Using DEBS, or detatched eclipsing binaries, groups such as the DIRECT project can make good estimates of distances of galaxies from the earth.