Astronomy Picture of the Day - Trifid, Lagoon, and Mars

NASA ^ | 10/06/2016 | (see imafe credits)

[ThomasMore]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2016 October 6

Trifid, Lagoon, and Mars
Image Credit & Copyright: Mohammad Nouroozi

Explanation: Bright nebulae and star clusters along this 5 degree wide field of view are popular stops on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. Cataloged by 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier, M20, the colorful Trifid Nebula, and M8, the expansive Lagoon Nebula, are at upper left and center. Both are well-known star forming regions about 5,000 light-years distant. Just passing through the same field of view on September 29, the yellowish star lined up with M8 and M20 at the lower right is actually Mars, close to 8.8 light-minutes from Earth on that date. That distance is nearly equivalent to 1 astronomical unit or the distance from Earth to Sun. Mars is overexposed in the image, with visible diffraction spikes created by the telescope mirror supports. Of course, Mars has long been known to wander through planet Earth's night skies.

[ThomasMore]

APOD PING !!!

If you want on the APOD list or off the list, Freepmail me

[Red Badger]

[ETL]

"Both are well-known star forming regions about 5,000 light-years distant. Just passing through the same field of view on September 29, the yellowish star lined up with M8 and M20 at the lower right is actually Mars, close to 8.8 light-minutes from Earth on that date."

For anyone who doesn't know, one light-year, the DISTANCE light travels in a year at its fixed speed of 186,000 miles per SECOND, works out to about 5.9 TRILLION miles.

[onyx]

Beautiful!
TYVM

[minnesota_bound]

Looks like the universe has lots of smog.

[Psalm 73]

The book was a million times better than the movie.
Read it for the first time at 11, then 20 years later, now I want to read it again (at 58).

[Red Badger]

To a 10 year old boy -me- the movies was great!...............

[dragnet2]

Trifid Nebula 9/6/2015 42x35s ISO800, Canon 60D.

I shot this nebula about about 1 year ago. It's the nebula seen on the upper left corner of the authors image.

Mine was a bit of a closeup of the Nebula. I only regret not obtaining more data on the image prior to processing, so I plan on revisiting the nebula in the near future.

The Trifid Nebula is a star forming region within our Milky Way galaxy, located a little over 5,000 light years from Earth. The nebula can actually be seen from dark sites with a pair of binoculars, however it will appear as a very small hazy patch in the sky.