Abstract details

We will present the results of wide-field optical and near-IR photometric surveys of the low mass disk system M33, covering 7 and 4 square degrees respectively. These data are used to quantify the various structural components of the galaxy measured down to effective V-band surface brightnesses of ~32 magnitudes per square arcsecond and to assess large-scale variations in the resolved stellar content across the system. The survey data, which reach a few magnitudes below the tip of the red giant branch, are complemented by two deep HST/ACS pointings located along the north-east major axis of the system at 4-5 disk scalelengths. These latter data are used to derive detailed constraints on the star formation history in the outer regions of M33, and we compare our results to expectations from cosmological galaxy formation simulations.