A group of young, hot stars in the cloud ionize the nearby gas. The field of view is about 3.3 by 1.7 arcminutes. If you’re trying this in the summer, start with the Lagoon Nebula or Eagle Nebula. However, while this optical image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope, cannot pierce the obscuring matter it is undoubtedly one of the most visually impressive. The massive stars hiding within the heart of the nebula give off enormous amounts of ultraviolet radiation, ionising the gas and causing it to shine colourfully, as well as sculpting the surrounding nebula into strange shapes. By late autumn and winter, these nebulae will drift out of the evening sky.
The nebula will continue forming stars until it runs out of gas, which will take at least hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of years.The Lagoon Nebula is located a few degrees to the right and slightly above the The neighbouring region is home to other notable deep sky objects, including the An amazing vista of the Lagoon Nebula taken with the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. It is composed mainly of hydrogen, most of it ionized by radiation from the star Herschel 36.Messier 8 contains the Hourglass Nebula, NGC 6523, and NGC 6530. The Hourglass is illuminated by the extremely hot, young stars. The large, lagoon-shaped band of dust seen to the left of the cluster’s centre is what earned the Lagoon Nebula its name. Image: NASA, A.Caulet St-ECF, ESAThis website uses cookies to personalise content and ads, and to analyse user traffic. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox.Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The Lagoon Nebula derives its name from the wide lagoon-shaped dark lane located in the middle of the nebula that divides it into two glowing sections.Image: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/ R. Gendler, U.G. Though the spiral shapes suggest the clouds are “twisting,” future observations will be needed, perhaps with Hubble’s next generation instruments, with the spectroscopic capabilities of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) or the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), to actually measure velocities. Image: ESO/VPHAS+ teamThis NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image reveals a pair of one-half light-year long interstellar “twisters,” eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) which lies 5,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

It illuminates the Hourglass and the neighbouring region. Image: ESO/VVVThe VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile has captured this richly detailed new image of the Lagoon Nebula. The Lagoon nebula is located in the Sagittarius constellation. < > Showing 1-4 of 4 comments . A close-up of the Lagoon Nebula using a DSLR and telescope Under moderately dark skies, the Lagoon Nebula is visible in binoculars or a small telescope.

It lies near 9 Sagittarii, one of the brightest stars associated with Messier 8. The term was formerly applied to any object outside the solar system that had a diffuse appearance rather than a pointlike image, as in the case of a star. The brightest star in NGC 6530 is a hot star belonging to the spectral class O5 with an apparent magnitude of 6.9. Small telescopes reveal two distict regions separated by a dark lane of dust.8-inch and larger instruments show more dark bands through the central region, a brighter core, knots and other details of the nebula.Giant “Twisters” in the Lagoon Nebula. Image: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/ R. Gendler, U.G. This image is a tiny part of just one of eleven public surveys of the sky now in progress using ESO telescopes. The star belongs to the spectral class O7 and has an apparent magnitude of 9.5. This image combines observations performed through three different filters (B, V, R) with the 1.5-metre Danish telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. The nebula is located in Sagittarius constellation, within the Milky Way Galaxy.It lies in the direction of the galaxy’s centre.
The faint extension of the nebula to the east, spanning about 25 light years, has its own designation in the Messier 8 never rises very high above the horizon for observers north of the equator, but can be seen in the summer months, when The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20) and the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8).