Messier 8  - Commonly known as the Lagoon Nebula .M8 was discovered in 1654 by italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna who like Charles Messier,sought to catalog nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. This star forming cloud  of interstellar gas is located in the constellation Sagittarius and its apparent magnitude of 6 makes it faintly visible to the naked aye in dark skies.Located 5.200 light years from Earth M8 is hometo its own star cluster : NGC 6530 .The massive stars embedded withim the nebula give off enormous amounts of ultraviolet radiation ,ionizing the gas and causing it to shine .

Equipment astrophotography :

optical tube: MEADE 80mm triplet apo serie 5000 

mount:Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro guided with Zwo asi120mm mono -PHDguiding 2

camera photo: Atik314L+ mono 

filters: Antlia H alfa 4,5nm Edge 1.25 inch 

exposures time frames: 18x 180sec  total 54 minutes

Location : Roma  -Italy - Bortle zone 9 .