The Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8)

The Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) is a large emission nebula with an open cluster and star forming region full of young stars. It’s located in the constellation Sagittarius and is roughly 4,000 and 6,000 light years away from us.

M8 is one of several large nebula that can be imaged within the galactic plane of the Milky Way and can be found near several ofther large nebula including the Trifid, Swan, and Eagle nebulae. Roughly speaking, it is about 150 light years wide by 50 light years tall. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula

 

This is ceratainly one of those large, beautiful objects in the sky worth looking at. Unfortunately due to weather and trees this image was made with 5 hrs of data collected over the course of two weeks (2.5 hrs Ha, 2.5 hrs Oiii). To produce this image I used the two data sets to create a bi-color HaHOO and HOO color mapping to RGB. 

 

I’ll certainly be returning to this one next year.

Detail of cloud structures within M8 by NASA and the ESA.

Technical

Explore Scientific 127 FCD100 APO telescope

Explore Scientific .7x Focal Reducer/Field Flattener

MoonLite focuser

SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro mount

ZWO ASI1600 MM Pro camera

Chroma Ha and Oiii filters