From my backyard, due to trees and hills, I only get about 3.5 hrs per night where M8 is visible. It takes a lot of nights to get this target. I previously captured this target about 4 years ago and I was very proud of that image. I just cant compare. I love my new AI processing flow.

The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000–6,000 light-years away from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', which translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulae, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Engraved Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006, four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, providing direct evidence of active star formation by accretion within it.

SH2-29 contains many other objects and dark nebula. IC 1274 is the bright, circular nebula at the top left of the image. Just below is the fainter circular nebula IC 1275. Between the two is situated a wide dark nebula Barnard 91. At the bottom centre is a bright filament known as NGC 6559. The thin dark lane to its upper right is Barnard 303. The nebulosity around Barnard 303 is IC 4685. Finally, just above center along the left margin of the image is a portion of open cluster NGC 6546. This complex in Sagittarius lies about slightly more than one degree of its much more famous neighbor, the Lagoon Nebula. In fact, some studies show that it is physically related to M8.