The Hubbel Space Telescope has taken breath-taking pictures of DSOs. One of the most famous taken in 1995 was M16, the Eagle Nebula, dubbed the "Pillars of Creation". The longest of the 'Pillars' is seven light years long, and because of their massive density interior gasses contract gravitationally to form stars. At each 'pillars' end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. Due to the huge distance between us, the Pillars of Creation may already be gone, and instead a stellar star nursery could have taken its place. In early 2007, scientists using the Spitzer telescope discovered evidence that potentially indicates that the Pillars were destroyed by a nearby supernova explosion about 6,000 years ago, but the light showing the new shape of the nebula will not reach Earth for another millennium.
Here is my 5 minute image of it (You have to click on it to see the Pillars clearly):
I used some new techniques to make the cluster of stars smaller and the pillars more defined. Carboni's Astro Tools has a feature, used in Photoshop, that can downsize stars.
