Here we see the brightest central core region of the M8, the Lagoon Nebula. This nebula is over a degree across, about four times the size of this field. Crossing diagonally through its center is Barnard 88, a river like dark nebula cut into parallel bands here. The splashy bright open cluster to the left is NGC6530, a 4.6 magnitude object, 14 acrcmins in size. The bright object to the right of center in the heart of the nebula is the Hourglass Nebula. Recent Hubble images of this area revealed tornado like vortexes present. The bright snake like structure at bottom left is a shock front. This occurs when two interstellar clouds collide and produce a bright rim of enhanced activity.

Processing: A very difficult object to process. The best presentation of the data was using Photoshop curves to retain the brilliant areas near the core and the dim regions with dark lanes. The curve looked something like a log curve.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  RRGB = 60:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2)
RGB Combine Ratio:  1: .95: 1.8
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW = 2.8 arcsec, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  15 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN, PW Pro.

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