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This beautiful cosmic cloud is a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius. Eighteenth century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged the bright nebula as M8, while modern day astronomers recognize the Lagoon Nebula as an active stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years distant, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The view is a color composite of narrow and broad band images recorded under dark skies in northwestern Arizona by Jim Misti with his 800 mm telescope. At the Lagoon's estimated distance, the picture spans about 30 light-years. (Text adapted from Astronomy Picture of the Day)
Image Credit & Copyright: Processing: Davide De Martin (http://www.skyfactory.org). Acquisition: Jim Misti (http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy). |
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