The Lagoon Nebula

Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, this bright star-forming region is located about 5,000 light-years from Earth.

This beautiful portrait of the nebula was captured by a Planewave CDK24 telescope at El Sauce Observatory in Chile. It combines narrowband data that isolates light from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen wavelengths to create this false-color image.

The raw data was curated by a remote telescope service and then combined, calibrated, and processed by Richard Leighton to produce the final image.