NASA/^ ESA/^ HUBBLE^ HERITAGETEAMAUGUST 2019 OBSERVING
Deep-Sky Wonders by Sue French
The Glorious Eagle
Many lesser-known clusters and nebulae swarm around the mighty Eagle Nebula.
Glorious bird! thy dream has left thee,
Thou hast reached thy heaven —
Lingering slumber hath not reft thee
Of the glory given —
With a bold and fearless pinion,
On thy starry road,
None, to fame’s supreme dominion,
Mightier ever trode.
—James Gates Percival, Genius WakingT
he Eagle Nebula is one of the
most celebrated deep-sky wonders,
thanks to the stunning and popular
1995 Hubble Space Telescope image
showcasing the glorious Pillars of
Creation, shown below. These dense
columns of gas and dust nestled in
the heart of the Eagle Nebula nurture
infant stars forming within. Yet these54 AUGUST 2019 • SKY & TELESCOPE
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PHDVXUHPHQWVZKHQDSSURSULDWHmagnifi cent structures may be mere
ghosts of a time long past.
Infrared images from Spitzer Space
Telescope show a hot gas cloud that
some astronomers interpret to be
a supernova shock wave advancing
toward the Pillars. If true, the shock
wave may have destroyed the Pillars
6,000 years ago. But because the Eagle
Nebula is about 7,000 light-years away,
it would be another thousand years
or so before the devastation is seen
through telescopes on Earth. The super-
nova itself might have graced our sky as
a bright star one or two millennia ago.
How strange and rare that we’re
caught in the astronomically brief
moment when we can gaze at a rela-
tively nearby celestial treasure that
may no longer exist! And the sight is
not reserved for those imaging the sky
or armed with immense telescopes.
The Eagle can be viewed through small
telescopes, and you can even glimpse a
bit of the Pillars under dark, transpar-
ent skies.
On one particularly fi ne night, I
devoted some time to sketching Mess-
ier 16 (the Eagle Nebula and its embed-
ded star cluster) as seen through my
130-mm refractor at 63×. I fi nd sketch-
ing to be a wonderful way to garner
detail from complex deep-sky objects.
As I study an object, I seem to slowly
develop an enhanced image — almost
as photographic fi lm does over time.
My sketch on the facing page shows a
throne-like structure emblazoned on
the Eagle’s breast. In the three Pillars of
Creation, it corresponds to the cen-
tral shaft and the bar connecting it to
the longest pillar. This dark throne is
approximately 4 light-years tall.The Pillars of Creation
reach through the heart
of the Eagle Nebula.