Jeff Schilling from Kingwood, Texas
The Lagoon Nebula (M8) brims with glowing gas, as well as dense dark clouds called Bok globules, where material is collapsing to form stars. The largest such globule in this image seems to be a hand pointing to the Lagoon’s center. The imager took nearly 15 hours of data in the Hubble palette with a 5-inch refractor.