The short summer nights in Central Europe hardly allow to focus on long-exposure objects, but the milky way region has plenty of bright showcase objects in store. They don't need overly long exposure, but most of the prominent star clusters and gas nebulae are in southern celestial areas and therefore difficult to capture from european latitudes. But when I went to N stach early in July 2021 I noticed that the air is remarably steady and higher magnification was possible even at low elevations. So I targetet an object that I never captured before apart from a humble attempt with my telephoto lens on film in the late 1980s - it was the Omega Nebula, M 17.

This object is an emission nebula in the busy area close to the central lane of the summer milky way. Located a few degrees north of the famous Lagoon Nebula, gas and dust are forming a pitoresque pattern, mostly casted by the uneven distribution of dark matter between the nebula and us.

I took the chance to capture 2 hours of net exposure time, completely utilizing the time from dusk till dawn.