When I was a kid, I used to haul my 25 cm 'scope out to the end of the driveway every clear night to observe. In the summer, one of my favorite targets was the Lagoon Nebula: it's bright, easy to find, and even with the frakkin' streetlight I had to peer past, details in the vast gas cloud were easy to spot. But I kinda wish I had access to a 1.5 meter telescope. Their view is a wee bit better:
Wow! Click to embiggen, or grab yourself a ginormous 2000x2000 pixel image if your current desktop is boring. Compared to this, I bet it is. This image of the Lagoon was taken using the European Southern Observatory 1.5 meter Danish telescope in La Silla, Chile. It's actually kinda sorta true color, using filters that mimic the sensitivity of the human eye. If you could find a nice dark ...
