✳ Lagoon Nebula

  Lagoon Nebula is a nebula in Sagittarius.

  Type            Nebula
  Constellation   Sagittarius
  Magnitude       5.0
  Apparent size   90′ × 40′ (3× the full Moon)
  You need        binoculars, or naked eye if it is really dark

  Known as
  Messier         M8
  Dreyer          NGC 6523

  Physical
  Distance        4,100 light years

  More information about Lagoon Nebula

  The Lagoon Nebula sits in the densest part of the Milky Way towards the
  galactic centre, and from somewhere properly dark it is visible without
  optics as a brighter patch in the band. The dark lane that gives it its
  name splits it in two.

  History
  Discovered   1654, Giovanni Battista Hodierna

  Messier was hunting comets. He compiled his list between 1758 and 1781
  as a register of things that look like comets but are not. That's why
  the objects on it have nothing in common beyond being fuzzy and staying
  put.

  Dreyer compiled the New General Catalogue in 1888, mostly from the
  sweeps William and John Herschel made of the sky, and numbered its 7,840
  objects in order of right ascension.

  where it is tonight:  skymap.sh/Lagoon Nebula