M20 The Triffid Nebula

The Trifid Nebula Messier 20 (M20, NGC 6514) in Sagittarius is a remarkable and beautiful object as it consists of both a conspicuous emission nebula and a remarkable reflection nebula component.

Charles Messier discovered this object on June 5, 1764, and described it as a cluster of stars of 8th to 9th magnitude, enveloped in nebulosity, where the remark on nebulosity follows only after the description of nearby M21, and includes that object.

 

Object
M20 Triffid Nebula.        Distance 5200 ly      9.0 (mag)      28.0 (arc min)
Camera CCD-Labs Q453HR
Pixel size:

Square 7.8um x 7.8um
Image format:

3032(h) x 2016(v) ~ 6.11M pixels
Image Area:

23.4mm(h) x 15.6mm(v) APS film equivalent
Equipment Orion Atlas Mount, EQMOD, Vixen ED130SS fl 860mm, William Optics 70mm Guidescope, Orion SS Autoguider
Date & Place April 17th Mt Pinos Calif.
Exposure &
Processing		  6x20min exposures Captured with MaxIm, Stacked with Deepsky Stacker, Background and color correction in CCDStack, Finished with Photoshop CS3 using Skytools 6.1