Trifid Nebula

The Trifid Nebula is located about 4100 light-years from Willingboro and is one of the youngest star-forming regions in our sky, being only about 300,000 years old.

The Trifid Nebula, aka M20 and NGC 6514, is an HII region and is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the relatively dense, reddish-pink portion), a reflection nebula (the blue portion), and a dark nebula formed by the dust lanes possibly generated by the supernova explosions of massive stars as they ended their short lives.

The photograph shown below was taken without a filter, thus showing all the parts of the nebula. The photograph that follows was taken with a dual band filter, and shows only the HII spectrum. Thus the reflection part of the nebula is not shown.