At a distance of 2.9 million light years, M33 is one of the three large spiral galaxies comprising the Local Group, our local cluster of galaxies (the other two being M31 and our own Milky Way galaxy). A spectacular spiral, several large hydrogen emission areas can be seen glowing pink in it's spiral arms.

M33 in an extremely difficult object to observe visually due to it's low surface brightness. Though the object has a very bright consolidated magnitude (5.7), the light is spread over an area equal to two full moons. With a large (16 inch or larger), wide field telescope and extremely dark skies, the spiral arms can be seen along with the glowing hydrogen clouds. Smaller telescopes will reveal only the dim nucleus.