Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula

Approximately 7,000 light-years from our Earth, there is a nebula that appears in our summer skies that maybe, second only to Messier 42, is the most famous nebula of all. Messier 16, also known as the Eagle Nebula, owes most of its fame to an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a small region within the nebula. the famous the Pillars of Creation.

Unfortunately this object is difficult to observe properly from my balcony here in the Netherlands, so I need to travel to a dark sky location to capture it. And when I visit a dark site, I usually have a long list of objects, mainly Messier objects, that I want to capture that night. As a result of that I can only spend a limited amount of time photographing Messier 16. I would very much like to capture this nebula properly one day, especially now that I recently bought two new Optolong filters that allow me to recreate the famous Hubble colour palette (SHO).

The Eagle Nebula is located in the constellation Serpens Cauda, also known as the Serpent’s Tail. Also in addition to the nebula which resembles an eagle in shape, there is also a star cluster located just above the Pillars of Creation. This cluster is known as NGC 6611. The reason that there is such a cluster within the nebula is easy to explain. As mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts, many emission nebulae are stellar nurseries. The stars in this cluster formed from the gas and dust in this region. These young, bright stars emit ultraviolet radiation that ionizes the surrounding gas, causing it to glow in these bright colors. Surrounding the pillars small, dark and compact clouds of gas and dust can also be seen. They are not really prominent in my current image, but a few are visible on the right hand side of the pillars. Astronomers believe that these compact clouds contain protostars that are still in the process of forming, something that can also be observed near the core of the well known Orion Nebula.

My image of Messier 16 was captured during a Messier Marathon that I did in the summer of 2025. In the future, I would love to return to this object and turn it into a bigger project.