This is my  first attempt at this target with just less than 5 hrs of integration time.  Weather permitting, I wll be trying to build up the integration time, but the forecast seeing is currently marginal.

Found slightly to the north and west of the Lagoon/Trifid Nebula complex, this nebula was made famous by the Hubble "Pillars of Creation" image - an image that also introduced the SHO or Hubble palette which I used here.

I've posted two version, one starless the other with stars.  I generally don't care much for starless images and a 'final' product since are completely unrealistic IMO.  My 'final version is with stars with stars.    The posted images are cropped about 70% from the original FoV and I've rotated the image 180dg to somewhat match the orientation of the Hubble Telescope image.

Enjoy, click Like and comment on the image.

____________________________________________________________________
Update:
I was able to get some more data and reprocess.  The total integration time was almost doubled, which brought in more detail from the surrounding nebula.  It alao affected the final color balance slightly as the mix of NB changed a bit due to time constraints.  I'm always surprised/amazed a bit at how the final result is influenced by increased data/integration time and M16 was no exception.  I did tweak the stars a little to reduce them a bit more than in the original version.  I did this to allow the new previously dim nebula structures to stand out a bit.   I left the original version with the lower integration time in place for comparison.

Update #2:
I decided I didn't really care for my 2nd posted version of M16.  So I completely reworked the post processing, and the result is more pleasant, IMO.  I decided to push my image data as far as I could by creating a cropped image that focused on the Pillars of Creation.  I created two versions of each, one starless and one with stars.  I think it is appropriate that the stars be included since M16 is a stellar nursery.  However, I realize that many have posted starless versions, so I included those with that preference.

With my relatively wide field OTA, my "close-up" of the PIllars of Creation cannot compete with those folks with OTAs that measure in the thousands of mm vs my rather short 550mm.  That being said, I think it is still a pleasant image if not as sharp edged as others might be with longer focal lengths.

IMO - YMMV

CS
Clayton

From Wikipedia:

The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellationSerpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux in 1745–46. Both the "Eagle" and the "Star Queen" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forminggas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. The Eagle Nebula lies in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way.The Eagle Nebula is part of a diffuse emission nebula, or H II region, which is catalogued as IC 4703. This region of active current star formation is about 5700 light-years distant. A spire of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula in the northeastern part is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers long.The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 8100 stars, which are mostly concentrated in a gap in the molecular cloud to the north-west of the Pillars.  The brightest star (HD 168076) has an apparent magnitude of +8.24, easily visible with good binoculars. It is actually a binary star formed of an O3.5V star plus an O7.5V companion.  This star has a mass of roughly 80 solar masses, and a luminosity up to 1 million times that of the Sun. The cluster's age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years.The descriptive names reflect impressions of the shape of the central pillar rising from the southeast into the central luminous area. The name "Star Queen Nebula" was introduced by Robert Burnham, Jr., reflecting his characterization of the central pillar as the Star Queen shown in silhouette.

Images produced by Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 greatly improved scientific understanding of processes inside the nebula. One of these became famous as the "Pillars of Creation", depicting a large region of star formation. Its small dark pockets are believed to be protostars (Bok globules). The pillar structure resembles that of a much larger instance in the Soul Nebula of Cassiopeia, imaged with the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005 equally characterized as "Pillars of Star Creation". or "Pillars of Star Formation".   These columns – which resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern – are composed of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust, which act as incubators for new stars. Inside the columns and on their surface astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas, called EGGs ("Evaporating Gaseous Globules"). Stars are being formed inside some of these.