This wonderful complex of light and dark nebulosity is Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, in Sagittarius. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see it with the stars removed so just the gas and dust are more easily seen.

Shining at 5th magnitude, M8 can be seen with the unaided eye from a dark-sky observing location as a bright patch above the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud.

M8 is a emission nebula and stellar nursery. Hot young stars that formed out of the hydrogen gas in the nebula cause it to glow in the light of ionized hydrogen at the hydrogen-alpha wavelength of 656.28 nanometers.

The Lagoon Nebula gets its name from the distinctive dark lane that runs through the heart of the nebula, just to the west of open cluster NGC 6530, which formed out of the nebula. The "Hourglass" is the brightest region of the nebula.

Bok globules, small dark knots which are condensing protostellar clouds, can be seen sprinkled throughout the nebula including those with Barnard designations B88, B89, and B296.

M8 has an apparent size of more than 60 x 30 arcminutes on the sky (the size of two full Moons) and is 140 light-years across in space. It is located 5,000 light-years distant.

M8 was apparently known to Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654, noted as a nebula by John Flamsteed in 1680, and rediscovered by Guillaume LeGentil in 1749. It was added to Charles Messier's catalog in 1764.

North is to the top in the above image.

Messier 8 Catalogs: M8, NGC 6523, LBN 25 Common Name: Lagoon, Dragon Object Type: Emission Nebula Magnitude: 5b Size: 60' x 30' Constellation: Sagittarius Image Field Centered At: RA: 18h 04m 18s Dec: -24° 14' 13"