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:
| Telescope | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture | 150 mm |
| Focal length | 570 mm |
| Mount | Rainbow Astro RST 135 |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm |
| Camera | ZWO 071 Pro @-0°C |
| Corrector | TS MaxField |
| Filters | No |
| Exposure | 71x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1, |
| Date | 2020-07-18 |
