NGC 6559: East of the Lagoon

2021-10-07

Astronomy Photo of the Day
copyright: Roberto Sartori

Slide your telescope just east of the Lagoon Nebula to find this alluring field of view in the rich starfields of the constellation Sagittarius toward the central Milky Way. Of course the Lagoon nebula is also known as M8, the eighth object listed in Charles Messier's famous catalog of bright nebulae and star clusters. Close on the sky but slightly fainter than M8, this complex of nebulae was left out of Messier's list though. It contains obscuring dust, striking red emission and blue reflection nebulae of star-forming region NGC 6559 at right. Like M8, NGC 6559 is located about 5,000 light-years away along the edge of a large molecular cloud. At that distance, this telescopic frame nearly 3 full moons wide would span about 130 light-years. Global Moon Party: NASA's Night Sky Network: Saturday, October 9



Don't like this one? Enter a date and check out a different photo.

     

How about a random one?

Random

Some of my favorites:

Sombrero Galaxy M100 Galaxy Rosette Nebula Saturn NGC 2841 Aurora Horsehead Nebula Pillars of Creation Comet Europa Jupiter Earthrise Galaxy Merger