Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)  ·  Contains:  Lagoon Nebula  ·  M 8  ·  NGC 6523  ·  NGC 6526  ·  NGC 6530  ·  The star 7Sgr  ·  The star 9Sgr
M8 Lagoon Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
M8 Lagoon Nebula
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M8 Lagoon Nebula

M8 Lagoon Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
M8 Lagoon Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

M8 Lagoon Nebula

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This is my image of the Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, an emission type nebula that is over 4,000 light years from Earth in the direction of our galactic core. It is an active star forming region composed mostly of ionized hydrogen and nitrogen (red/pink areas), helium and oxygen (blue/green areas), and dust (the dark lanes). A massive young star, Herschel 36, blasts out incredible amounts of radiation that ionizes the gas clouds producing their distinctive colors. In the upper part of this image you can see an open cluster of new stars labelled NGC 6530. I was lucky to capture the frames for this image over two nights in September 2020 when the clouds and smoke allowed. This image is a stack of twenty 60-second exposures calibrated with 20 flat frames, 10 dark frames, and 10 bias frames and then post-processed in Photoshop.

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M8 Lagoon Nebula, Joe Niemeyer