M33 is a member of the Local Group of galaxies, which our own Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy (M31) belong.  M33 is not as large as either the Milky Way or Andromeda and is considered an "average" sized spiral galaxy.  It is approximately half the diameter of the Milky Way with an estimated mass of about 40 billion solar masses.  At a distance of 3 million light years, its location is a little farther from our position than Andromeda.  It is approaching our location in the Milky Way at a speed of 182 km/sec. Correcting for the Sun's motion around our galactic center, M33 is approaching the Milky Way at 24 km/sec.  Many areas of nebulosity can be seen in the arms of M33.  These stand out as small "pink" areas in the galaxy and are similar in nature to nebulae such as M42 (The Great Nebula in Orion).  M33 is difficult to view visually from light polluted locations but can be easily seen from dark sky locations with modest sized telescopes.

¹http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m033.html