Milky Way. Enhanced optical image of the Milky Way running through the constellation Sagittarius. The Milky Way is our own galaxy; we see it as a band of light crossing the sky. The galactic centre lies in the direction of Sagittarius, so the star clouds are very bright in this region. There are numerous nebulae (pink) visible here. The brightest, at centre, is the Lagoon Nebula (M8). These emission nebulae glow red due to ionisation of their hydrogen gas by radiation from hot young stars embedded within them. This image was produced by a CCD (charge-coupled device), which stores images electronically rather than on film.