Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)  ·  Contains:  B85  ·  M 20  ·  M 21  ·  NGC 6514  ·  NGC 6531  ·  PK006+00.1  ·  Sh2-30  ·  Trifid Nebula
Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow
Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow

Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile

Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow
Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow

Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile

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Description

Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula)

OTA: TAO 150 (f/7.3)

Camera: FLI - ML16200 (1.13 arcseconds/pixel)

Observatory: Deep Sky West, Chile

EXPOSURES:

Red: 17 x 300 sec.

Blue: 15 x 300

Green: 11 x 600

L: 39 x 300

H: 8 x 1800

S: 9 x 1800

O: 10 x 1800

Total exposure ~ 21 hours

Image Width: ~1.5 deg

Processed by Alex Woronow (2020) using PixInsight, Skylum, Topaz, SWT

The Trifed (meaning “divided into three fields”) is unusual in that it has an open star cluster (Col 360) a emission nebula (the red cloud) and a reflection nebula (the blue cloud), and dark nebula traversing the emission nebual (B 85). The emission nebula, like most emission nebulae is a star-forming area with HD164492 being the most massive of some 3100+ young star at about 20 solar masses. The Trifid nebula appears circular in projection, but is, in fact, spherical--bubble like--with a center hollowed out by the solar winds and intense radiation from the central star cluster. It is that cluster and it violent activity that ionizes the hydrogen and spawns the red HII emissions.

Also in this image is Messier 21, at the lower edge. It contains 40-60 pre-main-sequence stars and several bright, and many more less bright, young blue stars. It has no physical connections to M 20, even though they both lie about 1.2 kpc from us.

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    Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow
    Original
  • Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow
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B

Description: Annotated

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Messier 20 (Trifid Nebula) LRGBSHO from Chile, Alex Woronow