Dreyer's precessed position is 5 seconds east and 1.5 arcmin north of the "standard" position, but in comparison to the size of the cluster, the discrepancy is minor; so there is no doubt of the identification. Although de Chéseaux discovered the cluster in the 1740's, his only publication of his discoveries was a report to the French Academy of Sciences which was more or less forgotten until Guillaume Bigourdan published a note about de Cheseaux in 1892; so when Dreyer published the New General Catalog, which was primarily an updating and expansion of John Herschel's General Catalog, he credited John Herschel as the discoverer. Why he didn't credit Messier, or John's father William Herschel, is not obvious at this writing. (Far more to follow, but the following is interesting...) 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 up 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.

     M18 is a loose collection of about 20 stars, spread over a region about 15 to 20 light-years in diameter, four to six thousand light-years from the Sun. Its hottest, brightest members are of the relatively 'early' spectral type B3, which means it is probably about 30 million years old. (Hillary Mathis, REU program, AURA, NSF, NOAO)

Dreyer's precessed position is less than 0.2 arcmin south of the standard position, so the identification is certain. Although de Chéseaux discovered the cluster in the 1740's, his only publication of his discoveries was a report to the French Academy of Sciences which was more or less forgotten until Guillaume Bigourdan published a note about de Cheseaux in 1892; so Messier's discovery was presumably independent. The brighter parts of the nebula appear somewhat like a bird floating on a body of water, hence the "Swan". The brightest part of the nebula extend over 15 light years, but fainter clumps of gas cover 40 or more light years. About three dozen young stars are hidden within the gas and dust of the nebula, which has nearly a thousand solar masses of gas thinly spread over its volume. The Swan is about 5700 light years from the Sun. (Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF/NOAO)