Greetings Shoal's Astronomy Club members. I wanted to demonstrate the website a little more so i uploaded a picture of the Lagoon Nebula. This nebula if visible to the naked eye, so binoculars or any small telescope will do to observe it. Of course, a telescope will suit you more to see it in fine detail. Anyway, i just wanted to upload a picture and maybe tell a little about the object. This description isn't my own. I found it in a book i have, called, 'Star-Hopping', by Robert Garfinkle.

When any of you get ready to upload pictures you have, you will need to download, 'Hello', by Picasa2...also maybe download the Picasa software... i have found Picasa excellent for pictures. The software that came with my digital camera won't even dowload the pictures all at once from the memory card. Picasa, i found, does do that. Anyway, i don't think, 'Hello' takes up much space, Picasa2 either. It's a simple click to send pictures from your, 'MyPictures' to the, 'Shoals Astronomy Club' Blogsite. So if you see anything neat on the internet you'd like to share, that is possible with, 'Hello' and 'Picasa'. Anyway, check them out!

enjoy!

A very popular Messier object is the Lagoon Nebula (NGC 6253); M8). Flamsteed recorded the existence of this object around 1680. De Cheseaux, Le Gentil, and De Lacaille all noted it in their separate listings around 1750. Messier took his first look at this magnitude 5.8 object, on May 23, 1764. Use a wide-field eyepiece to view all of this great object. A nebula filter helps to see the wispy nature of the cloud.