ph . Astronomy . Gallery . Astrophotos by George Liakos

Trifid Nebula (NGC 6514, Messier 20)

Posted 2006 October 05 @ 17:18

The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20) is one of the bright deepsky objects in Sagittarius and can be seen with the naked eye from a dark site. Sir John Herschel was probably the first to call it the "Trifid", its name refering to the three bright portions of the nebula, beautifully shown in George's photo. He writes: "I've yet to get out of the city to a dark site to take some images. I just work too damn hard!"

The image is a combination of 24 images for a total exposure time of two hours. One set of images was taken on 2006 July 26, the other on August 19, and stacked and processed using Adobe Photoshop.

Visually, the pinkish nebulosity is more prominent than the more subtle blue glow. The bright star embedded near the centre of the nebula is an exquisite triple star, and was first recorded as such by John Herschel (earlier, his father, William, had only seen it as a double star). The Trifid can be seen from May to October and is number 82 on the Top 100 Deepsky Objects list.

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Keywords: Astronomy, deepsky observing, deep sky observing, astrophotography, George Liakos