The summer Milky Way seems crowded. In this image, you see two
large areas of interstellar gas and dust that are lit by embedded
stars. On the right is the Lagoon Nebula (M 8), and on the left the
Trifid Nebula (M 20). There is a third Messier object in this scene,
the open cluster M 21 on the far left. All through the image, darker
clouds of gas and dust mask the stars behind them, and create dim rivers
against the stars of our galaxy's arms. This area is located just above the
spout in Sagittarius' "teapot."

Image Data:
Camera: Canon 350 XT (modified)
Exposure: ISO 800, 5 minutes x 32
Telescope: William Optics 66mm ZS, Baader MPCC