The Lagoon Nebula ( Messier 8, NGC 6523 ) in Sagittarius

[MikeODay]

The Lagoon Nebula ( Messier 8, NGC 6523 ) in the constellation Sagittarius - by Mike O'Day ( https://500px.com/mikeoday )

( click on image to see full size )

The Laboon Nebula ( M8 ) is visible to the naked eye under dark skies from most latitudes except the far north. Seemingly covering an area about three times that of the full Moon, M8 actually covers an area somewhat greater than 110 light years and is around 4300 light years from Earth in the Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm of the Milkyway galaxy. 

Links:

https://500px.com/MikeODay

http://photo.net/photos/MikeODay

Details:

Messier 8, NGC 6523 - Lagoon Nebula.
Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian telescope.
Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount.
Orion auto guider - PHD2.
Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector, UHC-S 'nebula' filter.
Nikon D300 (unmodified) (14bit NEF).
Field of view (deg) ~ 1.35 x 0.90.
20 x 120 sec ISO400.
26 x 30 sec ISO 1600.
23 x 240 sec ISO 200.
PixInsight and Photoshop.
2 August 14 .
re-processed 24 April 2016 to include the additional subs ( the first version only made use of the 23 x 240 sec ISO 200 subs ) and putting use the processing lessons I have learnt over the past year.

Here is the previous version:

 

 

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[alacant]

Wonderful. I'm guessing the big mirror makes a difference.

[ollypenrice]

Good stuff. Summer's coming! (From this end at least...)

Olly

[matt-c]

Great picture and nice write up.

So happy for these objects to be appearing , bring on the narrowband  

[andyo]

Very nice well done

[Astroboy239]

That's a great image. 

[MikeODay]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

[MikeODay]

Image contains:

Messier 8 ( NGC 6523 ) - Lagoon Nebula and Hourglass nebula ( the brightest part of M8 - quite small in this image and difficult to see but visible if you know where to look ).
NGC 6530  - open cluster
NGC 6533 
IC 1271 
IC 4678 

 

[Twisted Lip]

Well quite frankly, thats lovely! Exactly what the phrase 'popping from the screen' was invented for

Will

[MikeODay]

Thanks Will, that is very kind of you.

Cheers

Mike

[astro mick]

Absolutely stunning.

Mick.

[MikeODay]

Thanks Mick.