M24 (Sagittarius Star Cloud) · Seestar S30 Pro · 2026-07-16

Messier 24, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, is not a true star cluster or nebula but rather a gap in the foreground dust of the Milky Way's disk that lets observers see straight through to an extremely dense, distant field of stars in the Sagittarius Arm, roughly 10,000-16,000 light-years away. The visible window spans about 600 light-years and covers roughly 2 by 1 degrees of sky, making it one of the richest naked-eye and binocular star fields in the sky. Embedded within it are the open cluster NGC 6603 and several dark nebulae, including Barnard 92 and 93, which stand out as inky silhouettes against the dense star background. M24 is best imaged wide-field, where its sheer density of stars, rather than any single glowing structure, is the visual highlight.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Sagittarius_Star_Cloud]

Annotated Image

The annotated version is shown above - click it to zoom. Open the annotated image at full resolution.

Sky Location

The chart above shows where this image sits on the night sky. The yellow outline is its field of view, with the picture itself drawn at its true orientation; north is up and east is left. Click the chart to zoom in, and use "open full resolution" for the full-size chart.

Image Details

PixInsight Processing

1. Image Integration (x2)
2. Drizzle Integration
3. BlurXTerminator (AI deconvolution)
4. Dynamic Crop
5. Gradient Correction
6. Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
7. NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise)
8. StarXTerminator (star removal)
9. Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch (x5)
10. PixelMath
11. Curves Transformation

Messier 24, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, is not a true star cluster or nebula but rather a gap in the foreground dust of the Milky Way's disk that lets observers see straight through to an extremely dense, distant field of stars in the Sagittarius Arm, roughly 10,000-16,000 light-years away. The visible window spans about 600 light-years and covers roughly 2 by 1 degrees of sky, making it one of the richest naked-eye and binocular star fields in the sky. Embedded within it are the open cluster NGC 6603 and several dark nebulae, including Barnard 92 and 93, which stand out as inky silhouettes against the dense star background. M24 is best imaged wide-field, where its sheer density of stars, rather than any single glowing structure, is the visual highlight.

[Source: Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Sagittarius_Star_Cloud]

Annotated Image

The annotated version is shown above - click it to zoom. Open the annotated image at full resolution.

Sky Location

The chart above shows where this image sits on the night sky. The yellow outline is its field of view, with the picture itself drawn at its true orientation; north is up and east is left. Click the chart to zoom in, and use "open full resolution" for the full-size chart.

Image Details

PixInsight Processing

1. Image Integration (x2)
2. Drizzle Integration
3. BlurXTerminator (AI deconvolution)
4. Dynamic Crop
5. Gradient Correction
6. Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
7. NoiseXTerminator (AI denoise) (x2)
8. Multiscale Adaptive Stretch