(Positions may have been erroneous, or refer to different parts of the same object; will deal with that later)

Dreyer's position precesses to an area near the boundary of the nebula, so the identification is certain, but the discoverer is wrong. Although Roberts photographed the nebula in 1894, it had already been visually observed and described in detail by Trouvelot, who suggested a name (the Fan) which seems more appropriate than its more commonly used name (of unknown origin). (Wolfgang Steinicke's upcoming book on the NGC and IC catalogs is the source of this information, and anyone interested in the history of those catalogs should consider purchasing a copy.) The Eagle Nebula and the young star cluster associated with it are about 7000 light years away, meaning we see them as they were 7000 years ago. But to the left of the brightest part of the nebula, where the star cluster is centered, is a violently expanding cloud of gas caused by a supernova which took place a few thousand years beforehand. Estimates are that six thousand years ago, high-velocity supernova gases slammed into, compressed and simultaneously tore apart the so-called "Pillars of Creation" near the center of the nebula (though we won't see that until a millennium from now). In the process, most of the clouds of gas and dust visible here would be torn apart, but some of the denser nodules hidden inside the Pillars would be violently compressed, to quickly form bright new stars. In fact, in such regions, close to half the bright stars formed are the result of such events, and for lower mass stars like our Sun, compression by expanding gases is almost always the cause of their formation.