The Eagle Nebula is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the Pillars of Creation.
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 brightest star (HD 168076) has an apparent magnitude of +8.24, easily visible with good binoculars. It is actually a binary star formed of an O3.5V star plus an O7.5V companion. This star has a mass of roughly 80 solar masses, and a luminosity up to 1 million times that of the Sun. The cluster's age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years.
Pillars of Creation is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, some 6,500-7,000 light years from Earth.They are so named because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, while also being eroded by the light from nearby stars that have recently formed.
GSO 6" RC
ZWO ASI 071
Processed in Pixinsight
4min x 18
Fantastic Ben! Those star colours are so nice I could almost eat them. And the star queen stands out quite well. You really have the art of processing, making that RC 6 look quite capable.
