Dr. Bateson sends us two neat astrophotos today, taken from his observatory south of Susanville, of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae.
The Trifid Nebula was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 and its name means ‘divided into three lobes’. It is around 5000 light years away from Earth.
The Lagoon Nebula is an enormous interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Giovanni Hodierna in the 17th century and is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the naked eye from our hemisphere. The nebula is estimated to be 4,000 to 6,000 light years from the Earth.
