Omega Nebula sounds like something taken from Star Trek dialog, but it is really a thing. Known by many other monikers, Messier 17 (M17) is a stellar nursery in the constellation Sagittarius. It is not unlike Messier 42, The Great Orion Nebula. Such regions are composed of molecular hydrogen (H II) that is coalescing into young stars. The radiation from these young stars ionizes the hydrogen gas causing it to glow. M17 is some 5000+ light years away from Earth.
This image is the composite of 15, 6-minute frames taken with the 130mm astrograph last night (05/26/22). The first image is a cropped version of the complete field intended to show the nebula more clearly than the widefield image shows. The bright central area is a cluster of white-hot young stars. The widefield image shows that the nebula extends far beyond the bright central area.
