Lagoon & Trifid Nebula – July 2026

About This Image

The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae from Starfront Observatory. This is my first completed image processed from data captured with my newly installed remote telescope at Starfront Observatory in Texas. The image was collected over several nights using a William Optics UltraCat 76 telescope and ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera, combining hydrogen-alpha, luminance, red, green and blue exposures in PixInsight. The wide-field view features the Lagoon Nebula (M8) in the lower left and the Trifid Nebula (M20) in the upper right, surrounded by dense Milky Way star fields, glowing hydrogen gas and dark interstellar dust. Both nebulae are located in the constellation Sagittarius, toward the central region of our Milky Way. The Lagoon Nebula is approximately 5,200 light-years from Earth, while the Trifid Nebula is about 5,000 light-years away.