SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Jon Greif
Location of Photo:
Alpine, CA, USA
Date/Time of photo:
September 3, 2024, between 10 pm and 3 am PDT
Equipment:
ZWO SeeStar 50 mm, F5 "smart scope." Processed with Pixinsight 1.8.9.
Description:
This is my second go in 2 months at the Lagoon Nebula, M8 -- came out much better this time, with 4 hours of exposure time (vs one hour last time). The Lagoon Nebula is about 5,000 light-years away, and roughly 130 light-years in length. It lies within the constellation Sagittarius. The Lagoon Nebula is a stellar nursery - a place where new stars are born. And an open star cluster – NGC 6530 – made of hot, blue stars just a few million years old lies within M8. While visible to the unaided eye and therefore certainly seen throughout history, there is no known mention of this nebula until 1654, when Sicilian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna recorded his observations of the star cluster within the nebula.
