Eagle Nebula: This is the central part of one of the best investigated nebulae in the sky, because it is a prototype star generating region. Especially the details in the middle of this image are very well known as the "Pillars of Creation". The Hubble Space Telescope image of this part is one of the most widely published and known Hubble pictures.
The nebula is generated by the Open Cluster NGC 6611 left of center. Very bright young stars excite the surrounding gas to glow and stimulate secondary star generation in the elephant trunk like strucktures and globules, many of them are visible in this highly resolved image. Eagle Nebula has a distance of about 7000 LY.

For a wider field of view image see here.

The image was taken at the IAS astronomical site at the Hakos farm in Namibia.