This is an image I took June 24th, 2019 at a dark site about an hour from my house called Picket Post Trailhead. It is about 5 miles from Superior, AZ. The drive is not bad from anywhere in the Phoenix East Valley, but it dramatically improves contrast in astrophotography by getting away from the Phoenix light dome a bit.
This is M20 also known as The Trifid Nebula. Its about 5,000 light years away and lies within our galaxy, the Milky Way. They call it the Trifid Nebula because it actually has 3 distinct types of nebulae. The first is the red stuff, that’s an emission nebula which creates (emits) its own light. The blue area is called a reflection nebula which is created by dust particles reflecting nearby starlight. The third is called a dark nebula, that’s the dark dusty areas where space dust is actually blocking the light behind it creating a dark cloud.
The image is 1hr 40min of total exposure, 20 x 5 min frames stacked to bring out detail.
Telescope: Celestron 8″ SCT
Mount: Celestron CGX
Camera: ASI071MC Pro
© 2019 Daniel Sepich
