This richly detailed wide-field view captures a luminous crossroads of stellar birth and death in the constellation Sagittarius. At center left lies Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, a vast star-forming region where glowing hydrogen gas is sculpted by intense radiation from young, massive stars. Nearby, the Trifid Nebula, Messier 20, stands out through its striking contrast of blue reflection nebula and red emission gas, divided by dark lanes of cold dust that trace the earliest stages of stellar evolution.

Threaded through this vibrant complex is the faint supernova remnant G007.5−01.7, a delicate veil of energized gas left behind by the explosive death of a massive star. Its subtle filaments blend into the surrounding nebulae, revealing how stellar feedback enriches and reshapes the interstellar medium. Together, these objects illustrate the cyclical nature of the Milky Way, where star formation and stellar destruction coexist within the same dynamic environment, driven by gravity, radiation, and shock waves over millions of years.

The complex cloud displays an unusual combination of both red emission and blue reflection areas as well as numerous intricate dark patterns. The nebula is located 9000 light years away in the direction towards the galactic centre. The entire area is sprinkled with thousands of stars and fainter dusty and nebulous areas throughout. A separate prominent dark cloud appears dramatically silhouetted against the starry background to the right.A curious example of gas evaporation can bee seen near the core of the Trifid itself. Here a dense stalk, 8 light years from the centre, is emerging from the edge of the bubble surrounding the central cluster, and in the other direction a powerful stellar jet from a young star, HH 399 embedded in the gas, is shooting out in an upwards direction. The bright young stars in the central cluster emit strong radiation which eats away the surrounding gas and dust. The stalk only appears because a denser region lies at its very tip and protects a thin strip of the cloud from this interstellar erosion. The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged this fascinating area in high resolution: http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/.../hs-2004-17-a-print.jpg. Throughout the nebula lies countless young T Tauri stars just having emerged from their birthplaces inside the gas and dust. These are typically rather faint and reddish, though they are more easily visible in this image of another stellar nursery near AntaresImage details: Date: May - September 2020Exposure: HaLRGB: 270:916:190:190:195 mins, total 29 hours 21 mins @ -25CTelescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss NewtonianCamera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guiderFilters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2 and 3nm H-AlphaTaken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand See Less

Copyright: Rolf Wahl Olsen