IC 1274

IC 1274 (LBN 33) is the bright, nearly circular nebula at the upper center of the image. It lies close to the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) in Sagittarius. The nebula is a constituent of the Lynds 227 (L227) molecular cloud. Its cavity-like morphology is reminiscent of a blistered star-forming region. It contains four luminous B0-B5 stars.

In the background is Collinder 367 an open cluster at 3900 LY. The other nebulosity in the image is IC 4685 at 1761 LY.

This image is my first effort to process narrowband data for which I needed to learn many new techniques.

Apparent Size: 9.0 x 8.0 arcmin
Distance: 136 LY