The Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8)
Imaged September 6 and 7, 2023

The photons captured to produce  this image eft the nebula 4000-6000 years ago!  The Lagoon Nebula is an emission nebula located in the constellation Sagittarius, in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. It received its name due to the lagoon-shaped dark lane that appears above the bright “Hourglass” region. The dark lane divides the nebula in half. The Lagoon Nebula is home to some interesting astronomical features. At the center is the “Hourglass Nebula.” There is a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star, that emanates massive amounts of ultra-violet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula is also home to a number of Bok globules - dark, collapsing clouds of proto-stellar material. The Lagoon Nebula is classified as an HII region, where emission nebulae are created when young, massive stars ionize nearby gas clouds, composed primarily of hydrogen, with high-energy UV radiation. These stars have temperatures in excess of 10,000K. It is located about 5200 light-years away in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. It is a relatively large nebula, subtending about 90x40 arc-minutes in size. That is about 3 x 1-1/3 full Moons. The Moon subtends about 30 arc-minutes or ½ a degree. With a visual magnitude of 6, the Lagoon Nebula is one of only two star-forming regions visible to the naked eye in mid-northern latitudes, the other being the Great Orion nebula, which is much brighter. 

Exposure Data and other Useful Information

Focus and Seeing: Vega was 4.9-5.0 FWHM, with smaller stars around M8 were 2.3-2.5 FWHM 

Exposure Information:·
Lights: 84x frames total; 46x 60 seconds, 38x 90 seconds·       
Darks: 50x 60sec, 50x 90sec·       
4x Master Darks (2x 60sec, 2x 90sec)·       
1x Master Bias·       
2x Bad Pixel Maps (1 created this session)

Equipment and Software·       
AstroTech AT70ED with ATR8 0.8x FF/Reducer and IDAS LPS-D3 filter imaged by an Ha-modified Canon T3i·       
Mount: EQM-35Pro with ASI 120-MM-mini with ZWO 30mm f/4 guide scope and camera controlled by PHD2·       
Session Control via BeeLink mini-PC running EQASCOM, Carte du Ciel, ASTAP, BYEOS, and Polemaster with remote control via Windows Remote Desktop from a laptop. 
The images were stacked and processed in Astro Pixel Processor, further polished in Photoshop and LightRoom using R-C Astro's NoiseXterminator and StarXterminator.