Sagittarius and the Heart of the Milky Way Galaxy

This thirty second exposure is looking back toward the center of our galaxy. Sagittarius is the teapot shaped constellation of stars just to the left of center. The tail of Scorpius the scorpion can be seen through and above the trees at lower right. The open star clusters M6 and M7 are visible between the constellations. M23 can be seen near the top center on the picture. M7 is the brighter open cluster just southeast of center. The red patch just north of center is the Lagoon Nebula. The much smaller Trifid Nebula is just above the Lagoon and the bright red spot at the very top of the picture is M17 the Omega Nebula. The bright diffuse area in the center of the picture is caused by the millions of stars we see looking into the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Finally, the darker areas are the vast dust lanes of our galaxy viewed edge on. Also visible in this picture are the globular star clusters M22 and M28.