images

Eagle nebula in Serpens

by

ESO/Novapix

Reference

a-neb66-11015

Date

2009-07-18

Located in the constellation of Serpens, the Serpent, the Eagle Nebula is a very luminous open cluster of stars surrounded by dust and gas. The three pillars near the center of the image, made famous in an image by the Hubble Space Telescope, are being sculpted by the intense radiation from the hot stars in the cluster. This example is about 6000-7000 light years distant. Three-colour composite mosaic image based on images obtained with the Wide-Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory.