M 8 - EMISSION & REFLECTION NEBULA

Sagittarius

(ra: 18:0.3:8 / dec -24:23)

July 2009, Collaboration Carlos Rodriguez & Sergio Eguivar, Bernal - Buenos Aires, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Emission and Reflection nebula

VISUAL BRIGHTNESS: 5.8

SIZE: 90 arcs minutes

DISTANCE: 5200 light years

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: Meade 10" f6.3 (native) Meade fr/ff 0.63. System working at f4

CAMERA: Canon 20Da

GUIDING: Meade Mak 102 mm - Mod webcam and Gudemaster

IMAGE ACQUISITION: Guidemaster

FILTERS: Astronomik UHC

SKY CONDITIONS: urban skies - transparency regular to bad

EXPOSURES: 30 subs of 5 minutes each

PROCESSING: Calibrated in Images Plus, Sigma Median (no darks, flats, bias applied) CCD Sharp, Photoshop CS2

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION (*)

The lagoon Nebula is one of the most remarkable objects not only in Sagittarius but in the whole sky. Comparable with the Orion Nebula in its beauty and brightness, it is visible with binoculars. this instrument allows to cover M08 completely. The Lagoon Nebula spreads along 90 x 40 arcs minutes (the size of three moons).

The extension of Messier 8 covers an area of 140 x 60 light years. The Hourglass Nebula is located in its center (visible in the image) and is an active star formation region. As usual happens in this type of objects the discovery came after a star cluster, in this case NGC 6530 in the year 1680 by John Flamsteed. Charles Messier catalogued in 1764.

The image was acquired by Carlos Rodriguez while testing the 20Da in a polluted area working with the UHC filter of Astronomik. Processing in RGB was tough therefore have decided to work the image in B&E

(*) Source Seds