Home to the Pillars of Creation, the Eagle Nebula is one of the most iconic targets in all of astrophotography — a stellar nursery where new stars are being born inside towering columns of gas and dust.
Messier 16, the Eagle Nebula, lies roughly 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. It was the subject of one of the most famous astronomical images ever taken — Hubble's 1995 photograph of the Pillars of Creation — three enormous columns of molecular gas and dust rising from the nebula's interior, slowly being sculpted by the radiation of newly formed stars.
This was a target I returned to more than once. The two renders in the gallery represent an earlier attempt and a later revisit with improved equipment and a better understanding of the processing. Comparing the two side by side is one of the more satisfying things about this hobby — seeing the same subject reveal more detail as your technique develops.
The Pillars themselves sit near the centre of the nebula and require good seeing and sufficient focal length to resolve properly. In narrowband, the hydrogen-alpha and OIII contrast beautifully — the pillars appear as dark silhouettes against the glowing gas behind them.
