The Trifid, meaning three lobed - I don't know about you but three lobed is not what I see!?! NGC 6514 (M20) is 4,240 Light years from my telescope. The nebulosity is lit up by the energy of a star in middle of the dark veins. The group of stars in the Lower right of the photo is M21 Webb's Cross open star cluster. I purposely toned down the stars as to not blow out the Trifid. Webb's Cross is actually closer to us than Trifid at 3,930 light years. I took this photo on August 5-6, 2023. I took 189 frames lasting 30 seconds each. The air was pretty turbulent so I had to dump 98 frames, keeping only 91 for the stack. I will ultimately make another run at this beautiful nebula when the seeing conditions improve in the coming weeks.
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