M-8 the Lagoon nebula
The Lagoon Nebula is a showcase summer milky way object in Sagittarius; a diffuse emission nebula surrounding a cluster of young stars. It is one of the brightest nebulas in the sky; second perhaps only to M-42 in Orion. It can be seen without any visual aid in a dark sky if you know where to look. It's bright core is known as the hourglass nebula because it has that shape when seen in a telescope.
This is a 2-frame mosaic made from 4 exposures on hypered Kodak LE 400 film. Composites of two 60 min exposures were used for each frame of the mosaic. These were made with my 12.5" f/7 newtonian.