Stellar Shot of the Week

Larry Ammann caught this absolutely mind-boggling shot of the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae (M8 and M20) in Sagittarius with his SVX140T. The Trifid (at the top) is a reflection nebula located approximately 5,200 light-years away from Earth, while the Lagoon (at the bottom) is a giant emission nebula located about 4,100 light-years away. Both of these objects reveal an intricate web of dust lanes and star clusters that bring this region of the Milky Way to life with cosmic activity.

According to Larry:

“I’ve been traveling a lot this summer and so I haven’t had a chance to image the southern Milky Way until very recently. Since I only had limited time left, I decided to image what are two of the most photogenic targets in this region, the Lagoon and Triffid nebulae. Although there is lots of H-alpha in the Lagoon, I didn’t want that to swamp the delicate blue reflection nebula in the Trifid. So, I used the one-shot color camera ASI2400MC unfiltered from my Bortle 3 skies in southern OK for this RGB only image. I just had 2.5 hours of imaging time available but the f/6.7 speed of the SVX140T came through and produced great detail, especially with the Bok globules in the Lagoon and the extensive blue of the Triffid that surrounds the red emission areas.”

Other Designations:

• Lagoon Nebula: M8, Sharpless 25, RCW 146, Gum 72
• Trifid Nebula: M20, NGC 6514, Sharpless 30, RCW 147, Gum 76
  

Details:

Telescope: SVX140T+SFFX-2 (938mm f/6.7)

Camera: ASI2400MC (1.3"/pixel on the SVX140T)

Mount: Paramount MX+ (upgraded)

Focuser/rotator: Moonlite Nitecrawler

Subs: 78x120 secs unfiltered

Telescope and camera control: TheSkyX on a mac mini

Location: southern OK, Bortle 3

Processing: Pixinsight, Affinity Photo 2

References:

Wikipedia contributors. (2025, July 13). Trifid nebula. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifid_Nebula

Wikipedia contributors. (2025b, July 23). Lagoon Nebula. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula

Trifid and Lagoon nebulae | Rubin Observatory. (2025, May 28). https://rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-first-look/trifid-lagoon

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