A Sagittarius Triplet
A Sagittarius Triplet
These Three bright nebulae are often featured o telescopic
tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded star fields of the
central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles
Messer cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula above and left of center,
and colorful M20 near the bottom of the frame. The third emission region
includes NGC 6559, right of M8 and separated from the larger nebula by a dark
dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light –years or
so distant. Over a hundred light-years across the expansive M8 is also known as
the lagoon Nebula. M20’s popular moniker is the Trepid. Glowing hydrogen gas
creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae. In striking contrast,
blue hues in the Trifid are due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful
composite skyscape was recorded with two different telescopes to capture a wide
field image of the area and individual close-ups at higher resolution.
Comments
Post a Comment