The Lagoon Nebula is a giant interstellar cloud ~4100 LY away in the constellation Sagittarius. The pink/red glow is caused by ionised Hydrogen gas. The ionisation comes from extremely bright young stars with high Ultraviolet light output. M8 is just visible to the naked eye in dark skies and easily seen in binoculars. It spans 90' x 40' which is ~3 x 1 full moon diameters and at its distance equates to 110 x 50 LY. Imagine the energy required to light that up! DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 Stacked 80% of 16 Images ISO 800 240 Sec, 20 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS, Post processing by Adobe Photshop CS5 Telescope - Apogee OrthoStar LOMO 80/480 with Hotech SCA Field Flattener, NO filter, Canon 400D DSLR, Ambient 13C. Mount - Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. Guidescope - Orion ShortTube 80 with Star Shoot Auto Guider.
Messier M17 - NGC6618 - Eagle or Swan Nebula - 9/5/2011 (Processed cropped stack) DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 Stacked 75% of 40 Images ISO 800 120Sec, 32 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS, post processed by Adobe Photoshop CS5 Telescope - Apogee OrthoStar LOMO 80/480 with Hotech SCA Field Flattener, Hutech IDAS LPS-P2 filter, Canon 400D DSLR, Ambient 19C. Mount - Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. Guidescope - Orion ShortTube 80 with Star Shoot Auto Guider.
Messier M17 - NGC6618 - Eagle or Swan Nebula, M18 - NGC6613 Open Cluster - 9/5/2011 (Processed stack) DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 Stacked 75% of 40 Images ISO 800 120Sec, 32 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS, post processed by Adobe Photoshop CS5 Telescope - Apogee OrthoStar LOMO 80/480 with Hotech SCA Field Flattener, Hutech IDAS LPS-P2 filter, Canon 400D DSLR, Ambient 19C. Mount - Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. Guidescope - Orion ShortTube 80 with Star Shoot Auto Guider.
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