Lagoon Nebula (M8) taken this evening (via the Soho satellite.)

Hello, here is a shot of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) taken this evening (via
the Soho satellite.)

http://www.comsketch.com/soho22December06.jpg

Every year at this time M8 passes the Sun and I say to myself, I'm
going to catch it the next time it comes around.

I processed it using Roxio Photosuite, and although it's low-rez and
very noisy, Earth-bound telescopes can't see M8 right now because of
its proximity to the Sun (and considering its drizzling out outside
right now I'm happy we can see something 5000 light years away in near
real-time with minimal processing, sitting at home; we live in great
times.)

The brightest star on the left is HIP88581 which is 1449.6 light years
away at Mag. 6.84, Starry Night Pro says it's a single star. There are
definitely stars deeper than Mag. 10 in this field(although the deepest
one I can definitely peg is Mag. 9.34, it is much brighter than many
of the others.)

A star that should have been very bright at Mag 5 appeared somewhat
dimmer than HIP88581, which may be due to matter streaming from the
Sun.

It's something to do on a cloudy/rainy night.

Regards, Jason H.

Jason H. wrote:
Hello, here is a shot of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) taken this evening (via
the Soho satellite.)

http://www.comsketch.com/soho22December06.jpg

Every year at this time M8 passes the Sun and I say to myself, I'm
going to catch it the next time it comes around.

I processed it using Roxio Photosuite, and although it's low-rez and
very noisy, Earth-bound telescopes can't see M8 right now because of
its proximity to the Sun (and considering its drizzling out outside
right now I'm happy we can see something 5000 light years away in near
real-time with minimal processing, sitting at home; we live in great
times.)

The brightest star on the left is HIP88581 which is 1449.6 light years
away at Mag. 6.84, Starry Night Pro says it's a single star. There are
definitely stars deeper than Mag. 10 in this field(although the deepest
one I can definitely peg is Mag. 9.34, it is much brighter than many
of the others.)

A star that should have been very bright at Mag 5 appeared somewhat
dimmer than HIP88581, which may be due to matter streaming from the
Sun.

It's something to do on a cloudy/rainy night.

Cool! When I go to the Soho site I like to see if I recognize the star
field the sun is in (for fun and mocking of astrologers ;-) ) and to
see if the odd sun grazer is visible. Never saw a nebula in the field.
Thanks for the heads up.


Shawn

An astronomer friend of mine told me he thought it might not be M8, so
I took a look at today's SOHO LASCO C3 image (which I knew from past
years would show M22 clearly and which I could use as a guide object)
and the knot in the first image appears to be just southwest of M8
(relative to the ecliptic). The new shot below was taken this afternoon
and shows the full SOHO frame (instead of the clipped one from before)
and I've inserted what I believe is the right perspective from Starry
Night, which does show M22, M25, M17 and others, and where M8 should
appear (but doesn't)

http://comsketch.com/sohoM8M22M25M17...OREwINSERT.jpg

but it appears to show the nearby extended light/dust knot (which I
don't know whether or not it is physically/directly related to the M8
complex. I don't know which filters were being used by the LASCO C3
camera at the time (there are a bunch of them in all different light
frequencies and IR) It's in the neighborhood anyway (from our
perspective).

Regards, Jason


Jason H. wrote:
Hello, here is a shot of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) taken this evening (via
the Soho satellite.)

http://www.comsketch.com/soho22December06.jpg

Every year at this time M8 passes the Sun and I say to myself, I'm
going to catch it the next time it comes around.

I processed it using Roxio Photosuite, and although it's low-rez and
very noisy, Earth-bound telescopes can't see M8 right now because of
its proximity to the Sun (and considering its drizzling out outside
right now I'm happy we can see something 5000 light years away in near
real-time with minimal processing, sitting at home; we live in great
times.)

The brightest star on the left is HIP88581 which is 1449.6 light years
away at Mag. 6.84, Starry Night Pro says it's a single star. There are
definitely stars deeper than Mag. 10 in this field(although the deepest
one I can definitely peg is Mag. 9.34, it is much brighter than many
of the others.)

A star that should have been very bright at Mag 5 appeared somewhat
dimmer than HIP88581, which may be due to matter streaming from the
Sun.

It's something to do on a cloudy/rainy night.

Regards, Jason H.