Eagle Nebula - M16 - NGC 6611 ------ I was fortunate to get a nice clear evening to image this awe-inspiring nebula.  The gorgeous "Pillars of Creation" photo made famous by the Hubble Telescope caught my eyes some years ago,  well before I ever in my wildest dreams, thought I would be able to photograph it from my backyard.  I missed it last year because my Southern view is obstructed by a series of tall Redwood trees and the opportunity did not arise.  I have to photograph it when it is visible between trees since it never gets high enough in the sky to clear the upper branches.

The Eagle Nebula is part of a diffuse emission nebula, or H II region, which is catalogued as IC 4703. This region of active current star formation is about 5700 light-years distant. A spire of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula in the northeastern part is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers long.

The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 8100 stars, which are mostly concentrated in a gap in the molecular cloud to the north-west of the Pillars.   The cluster's age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years.

The Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 greatly improved scientific understanding of processes inside the nebula. One of these became famous as the "Pillars of Creation", depicting a large region of star formation. Its small dark pockets are believed to be protostars (Bok globules). The pillar structure resembles that of a much larger instance in the Soul Nebula of Cassiopeia, imaged with the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005 equally characterized as "Pillars of Star Creation". or "Pillars of Star Formation". These columns – which resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern – are composed of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust, which act as incubators for new stars. Inside the columns and on their surface, astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas, called EGGs ("Evaporating Gaseous Globules"). Stars are being formed inside some of these.   (Wikipedia)