Tag: Messier20

M8 Lagoon Nebula, M20 Trifid Nebula

These two magnificent nebulae are located visually close to each other in the constellation Sagittarius. This means we are looking in the direction of the galactic core of the Milky Way. Trifid Nebula (up left) is a combination of a reflection nebula (blue part), a dark nebula (brown clouds), an emission nebula (red region), and a star cluster. On the other hand, the Lagoon nebula (right side) is an emission nebula – a giant cloud of ionized HII gas. Due to the very low southern declination, it’s challenging to photograph these deep space objects from my home place in Central Europe. Therefore every time I travel south, I take the opportunity and recapture these nebulae. My first attempt of M20 was made with a focal length of 917 mm, the second one with 630 mm and now I used a gentle focal reducer. A focal length of 570 mm allowed me to fit both nebulae into the field of view of the APS-C sensor size. The picture is an integration of 213 minutes, taken under the dark skies of Fuerteventura.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length570 mm
MountRainbow Astro RST 135
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-0°C
CorrectorTS MaxField
FiltersNo
Exposure71x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2020-07-18

M20 Trifid Nebula M21 Open Cluster

Messier 20 (called Trifid Nebula) has been captured by me already on Gavdos. This year I had a telescope with shorter focal length, therefore I managed to capture two objects of Messier’s catalogue on one shot. Specifically it’s mentioned Trifid Nebula and M21 Open Cluster (down left from the nebula). The nebula has been already described in my previous post and it’s located not far from M8 Lagoon nebula. The cluster M21 contains approximately 60 stars and it’s characterized by quite dense core, where the distance between neighboring stars is only one light-year.

The picture was taken under dark skies of Milos Island and it’s an integration of only 54 minutes of exposure time.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure18x180s, Gain 134, bin 1x1,
Date2018-09-13