| Description | The Trifid Nebula is a bright spot, low on the Southern Horizon, just above the Lagoon Nebula... connected by a band of HII gas. It's part of one of the most active star forming regions in our part of the Milky Way, eclipsed only by the Orion complex. Trifid, btw, means "3-lobed" which is an obvious name when you examine the object. I hadn't planned on observing this object, but it was a partly cloudy night and the southern horizon was the clearest. The Trifid was quite low, around 20° when the observation started, but far enough west to miss the tall trees on my property which are closer to the meridian. Transparency was mediocre, with a rising moon illuminating the sky. But I was able to capture this fairly quickly, with my camera set to Bin 2. The bright edge at the bottom of the thread is the Lagoon Nebula (M8). |
