Two of the sky’s more famous residents share the stage with a lesser-known neighbour in this enormous three gigapixel image from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST). On the right lies the faint, glowing cloud of gas called Sharpless 2–54, the iconic Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) is in the centre, and the Omega Nebula (Messier 17) to the left. Image credit: ESO / VST Survey.

Three Spectacular Nebulae Caught Together, Revealing Stunning Details About Star Birth

The Omega Nebula, the Eagle Nebula and Sharpless 2–54 all line up in space. Here’s a never-before-seen view of them all together!

“It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing else can be so pretty! A cluster of vapor, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned into light.” -Benjamin Disraeli

Most the night sky’s stars are ancient: legacies of star-forming nebulae and young clusters that dissociated long ago.

The All-sky VST (VLT Survey Telescope) survey will capture more than 80% of the entire sky, with only the northernmost latitudes — within the arctic circle — being omitted due to location. Image credit: ESO.

But in the galactic plane, best viewed from terrestrial, equatorial regions, new star-forming regions continue to take shape.

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Cerro Paranal. The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope equipped with OmegaCAM, a monster 268 megapixel CCD camera with a field of view four times the area of the full Moon. It is presently surveying the entire night sky, as best as it can observe, in visible light. Image credit: ESO/G. Lombardi (glphoto.it).

The ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), equipped with a wide-field view and a 268 megapixel camera, just released an incredible panorama.