Eagle Nebula

Messier 16 - known as the Eagle Nebula due to the pillars of dark dust in the center tha resemble an eagle's open beak - is a large emission nebula in the constellation of Serpens Cauda just north of Sagittarius. The hot stellar wind of the newborn star cluster to the right of the beak is shoving the ionized hydrogen gas away from them, and it is only where enough gravity and mass exists due to forming stars that pillars continue to push forward out into the void. Each dark cloud in the beak is from 1-3 light years long and is sheltering an infant star that is still drawing dust and gas into itself in a race to gain as much mass as possible before the coccoon around it is blown away by the nearby cluster. The eagle's beak is also known as the Pillars of Creation.

This is a very star rich area, but I wanted to highlight the structure in the nebula itself so I shot 2 hours through a 9nm Hydrogen-alpha filter (centered on a deep red wavelength of 656.3nm) to isolate the ionized hydrogen and minimize the glare from the surrounding stars. I then blended in another 2 hours of LRGB color data shot a year later to add color to the monochrome image.

Losmandy GM-8, Takahashi TSA-102 (816mm, f/8), ST-2000 XCM, Schuler 9nm H-a filter. 240 minutes exposure time taken August 2006 and July 2007.