M 8 – THE LAGOON NEBULA Ha

Sagittarius

 (ra: 18:03,8/ dec -24:23)

DATA

TYPE: Emission and Reflection Nebula

VISUAL MAGNITUDE: 5.8

SIZE: 90 arc minutes

DISTANCE 5,200 light years

OBJECT DESCRIPTION

As it usually occurs for in the case of nebulas, its discovery came after the star cluster, in this case NGC 6530 in the year 1680 by English Astronomer John Flamsteed. Charles Messier catalogued M8 in 1764. The Lagoon Nebula has an extension of 90 times 40 arc minutes. That’s about the size of three full moons one after the other. The nebula has an extension of 140 times 60 lights years and probably is one of the most impressive nebula objects along with M42 and Eta Carinae.

The night was not very good. Thin clouds where travelling my backyard skies in Buenos Aires suburbs. I decided to give a chance to the Orion Short Tube to see what it was about to offer. I was impressed with its fast optics and handy use.

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: Orion Short Tube 80 mm Vixen GPDX Mount. Sky Sensor 2000

SKY CONDITIONS: VISUAL MAGNITUDE limite 4 with clouds passing by

CAMERA: SXVF H9 – @f 5

FILTERS: Astronomik Ha (6nm)

EXPOSSURES: 12 x 240 seconds.

PROCESSED: Images Plus (flats) Sigma Combined / Photoshop CS