One of the most spectacular objects in the summer sky is coming into view. It lies in the quite beautiful constellation of Sagittarius the Archer and is seen in this map here as M8. M stands for Charles Messier who was cataloguing objects which looked like blobs so he wouldnt confuse them with comets which was his real purpose.
Astronomers call M8 the Lagoon Nebula. It has a sort of bright nebulaic cloud to one side, a dark lane in the middle then a star cluster on the other. When I saw this object last summer I almost fell off my chair it was so spectacular. After the Orion Sword it may be one of the most amazing objects in the sky.
In the region of Sagittarius on a very clear night you may be annoyed at the clouds around obscuring your view as I was. Then I found out it was actually star clouds! The stars here are so densely packed that they look like bright luminescent clouds!
Even if you have no binoculars this feature alone is worth seeing.
So go out and have a gander.
