Site icon Strange Quarks

The Eagle Nebula

I recently took an image of the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) in the constellation Serpens with my Seestar. This object is around 6000 light years distant from us.

M 16: The Eagle Nebula (20 minute exposure, f/5)

The nebula takes its name from imagined outstretched wings. I agree with Karen that a small dark region near the centre of the nebula also bears an eagle-like (possibly even moreso) semblance.

M 16 (region imaged by Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes)

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaged this region in 1995 with the result dubbed The Pillars of Creation (credit: NASA):

The tips of the finger-like structures glow with stars forming within. The arrowed region in my image is rotated 180 degrees from HST’s.

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken even more impressive images of The Pillars, such as this one:

Exit mobile version