The Lagoon Nebula
M8, colloquially known as The Lagoon Nebula and also catalogued as NGC 6523, is a giant interstellar cloud in the Sagittarius region between Sagittarius and Scorpio in close proximity to M20, the Triffid Nebula – in a wide field view these two nebulous regions can be imaged together. At a distance of 4,100 ly with an apparent magnitude of 6.00 and occupying approximately 90×40 arcminutes of the sky, this H-II emission nebula is faintly visible to the human eye in dark skies.
Superimposed in front of a portion of the Lagoon Nebula is NGC 6530, an open cluster.
M8 imaged from backyard Lesmurdie in June 2020
Widefield of the M8 and M20 region in Sagitarius taken with the ED80 and canon 70D imaged on 20th July 2015
The first attempt at imaging M8, the Lagoon Nebula