M8 is a spectacular emission nebula where numerous stars are being born. In this photograph, you can see many Bok globules - these are the distinct dark spots. Each of these Bok globules is a location where clouds of gas are condensing into protostars. At magnitude 6.0, the Lagoon Nebula is easily visible from a dark sky as a cloudy 1 degree patch in the Milky Way.

In this image, North is Up. This image is cropped to 91% of the original full frame.

Exposure Details
Lens	Celestron C-8 SCT with Celestron focal reducer
Focal Length	1260mm
Focal Ratio	f/6.3
Mount	Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2
Guiding	80mm f/11 guidescope with PHD Guiding
Camera	Canon 20Da
Exposure	31 subexposures of 180 seconds each at ISO 1600 - just under 2 hours total
Calibration	30 darks, 30 flats, 30 bias
Date	August 25 and 27, 2011
Temperature	66F on 8/25, 69F on 8/27
SQM Reading
Seeing	4 of 5 on both nights
Location	Pine Mountain Club, California
Software Used	Images Plus 4.0 for camera control, calibration, stacking and digital development. Photoshop CS5 used for flat fielding, curves, color correction, saturation adjustments, and shadows and highlights. Carboni Actions for additional saturation adjustments and local contrast enhancement.
Notes	There are many ways that astrophotographers interpret the colors in the Lagoon Nebula - most will display much deeper reds than I have here. However, I prefer a less saturated Lagoon, and this interpretation is my preferred view. But, to each his own. This image was chosen Digital Astro Challenge Photo 1st place for August 2011 in the Nebula Category.