Lagoon Nebula M8 in Narrowband SHO Palette
Saturday, May 23rd, 2026 at 7:48:13 PM · 2026/Astrophotography
This is a deep-sky astrophotograph of Messier 8 (M8), the Lagoon Nebula, a giant interstellar cloud and active star-forming region located in the constellation Sagittarius. The image was captured using the Hubble-palette SHO color mapping (Sulfur-II mapped to red/orange, Hydrogen-alpha to green, and Oxygen-III to blue), producing the dramatic contrast between the luminous blue-white central ionized core and the surrounding golden-orange sulfur-rich shell. The bright central region reveals a dense star cluster and intense ionization from hot young stars, surrounded by intricate pillars, filaments, and dark dust lanes sculpted by stellar winds. A total integration of 3.2 hours was accumulated using a TMB-92 APO refractor at 420mm focal length paired with a ZWO ASI533MM Pro monochrome camera, with individual narrowband exposures of 5 minutes each across Ha, OIII, and SII filters. The field of view spans approximately 92.6 × 92.6 arcminutes at an image scale of 1.85 arcsec/pixel, showcasing the full extent of this iconic nebula against a richly populated Milky Way star field.
Chronologically Adjacent
