Took this at the St. Croix Observatory while the Trifd Nebula was low on the horizon (although the conditions were pretty good). Eventually it hit the trees.

The earliest recorded observation of this object was made by Charles Messier in 1764, when he cataloged it as a "nebula without stars" surrounding a cluster. Located in the constellation Sagittarius, Messier 20 is now famously known as the Trifid Nebula because of its striking three-lobed appearance, caused by dark dust lanes dividing the bright emission nebula.

In addition to its red emission regions, the Trifid also contains a prominent blue reflection nebula and regions of dark nebulae, making it a unique object that showcases three types of nebulae in one. The central star cluster energizes the glowing gas and is still an area of active star formation. The brightest star, HD 164492, illuminates much of the nebula and contributes to the dramatic contrast seen in this image.

Total image time was 70 minutes.

Exposure	7 x 10 min.
Gain	100
Camera	ToupTek ATR2600C [6224 x 4168]
Optics	120mm Skywatcher Esprit on a Proxisky UMi20S Strain Wave mount
Guiding	ToupTek GPM462M using Phd2 with a 400mm guide scope. Average 20 min sub GuideRMS ranged from 0.9 to 1.1 using 0.5 sec exposures.
Controller	Kstars on MeLe Quieter 4C
Filter	Triad Quad Ultra
Location	St. Croix Observatory, Nova Scotia.
Date	2025-09-24
Processing	Processed in PixInsight.
PixInsight Processing	WeightedBatchPreprocessing Script BlurXTerminator GraXpert NoiseXTerminator StarXTerminator Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch on both the stars and starless images HDRMultiScaleTransform on Starless PixelMath to recombine the images

Date: September 25, 2025 ]]> https://sciencedowneast.com/zenphoto/index.php?album=Nebulae/M20-Trifid-Nebula&image=M20-Trifid-Nebula.jpg Thu, 25 Sep 2025 13:30:48 -0300