Update: This image was Image of the Day on 8-8-2015 on Astrobin.com
The Sagittarius part of the Milky Way is a very interesting and beautiful area. You can find the Lagoon (M8) and Trifid (M20) nebulas here, as well as the Eagle (M16) and Omega nebulas (M17). But perhaps even more interesting is the Sagittarius Star Cloud, or M24. This is a gap in the dust of Sagittarius and you look right through into the deeper regions of our Milky Way. This ‘window’ gives us a look into the Norma arm, another 6000 light years further away than the Sagittarius dust and the before mentioned nebula’s.
The Sagittarius Star Cloud is not a real star cluster, but merely a collection of stars that lie in our line of sight when we look into this ‘window’.
I imaged this beautiful part of the Milky Way with the secondary setup from Namibia.
Acquisition details Sagittarius Star Cloud
Date: July 12, 2015
Location: Kiripotib, Namibia
Optics: Nikkor 80-200mm F2.8 used at 80mm F4
Mount: Fornax 51
Camera: Unmodified Nikon D5100
Guiding: Lacerta MGEN
Exposures: 35x5min ISO800 + 20x10min ISO400
