The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae

In one of my other images I show these two nebulae as revealed by my 92mm refractor. This is a similar view made with my 85mm lens at f/4, a perfectly ordinary lens on a common sort of camera, but capable of revealing good detail on these distant objects. Three distinct kinds of clouds are visible here: clouds of gas, clouds of dust, and beyond them, clouds of billions of stars.