Robert Burnham, Jr. devoted several pages of his third volume of Burnham's Celestial Handbook to the Eagle Nebula M16 in the constellation Serpens (Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1978, pp. 1782-1792). The photograph taken by the 200-inch Palomar Observatory reflector (p. 1786) was stunning for its day. Many of the features revealed by the 200-inch are also seen in my 6-inch Celestron Origin Observatory image shown here. Who would have thought that possible back then!
One of the most beautiful colour photos ever created in M16 was entitled "Pillars of Creation" (POC). Three towering columns of gas and dust were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in April 1995 and published in the February 1996 issue of Sky & Telescope, Vol. 91(2), pp. 32-33. Fast forward to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and an extraordinary photograph of the POC revealing more stars and protostars never seen before (see Astronomy, Vol. 51(6), June 2023, p. 19 and Cosmos, Penguin Random House, New York, 2024, pp. 222-223).
NGC 6611, an open cluster of young stars and the main object of interest in subsequent sections of this webpage, has had a long history of research owing to its importance to stellar evolution. Also captured in this Celestron Origin 1.27° x 0.85° field of view is most of the open cluster Trumpler 32 (Tr 32), which has not received as much scientific attention as NGC 6611 (see Sky & Telescope, Vol. 138(2), August 2019, p. 55). Not far from Tr 32 are two variables, the carbon star ES Ser and the Beta Cepheid HD 168015. I will return to study these three lesser-known objects at a later date.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, Merle F. Walker began to study young star clusters at the Lick Observatory. His series of publications included open clusters NGC 2264 in Monoceros (1956), NGC 6530 in Sagittarius (1957), IC 5146 in Cygnus (1959), and NGC 6611 in Serpens (1961). Using my Origin star field image, Walker's list of NGC 6611 cluster members are labelled in blue, and stars he listed as foreground stars are labelled in white. In this first image I have labelled 15 members around the outskirts of the more densely populated central region of the cluster. This gives you an idea of the size of NGC 6611. More of Walker's member stars are added in subsequent sections to avoid label congestion.
All of the member stars are linked to the Simbad Database using action buttons at the bottom of this page. V magnitudes and young stellar object (YSO) status are from Simbad. Also, note that I have included several reference field stars using yellow labels and their Bonner Durchmusterung Catalogue numbers.
Reference:
"Studies of extremely young clusters. IV. NGC 6611", Merle F. Walker, Astrophys. J., 133, 438-456, (1961).
In the mid-1880s, Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander and his team estimated magnitudes and positions of approximately 320,000 stars at the Bonn Observatory. This catalogue is still in use today. Examples: BD+13° 4000 star in Aquila, and BD-13° 4906 star in Serpens.
References:
1. Universe, William J. Kaufmann, III, W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, pp. 19-20.
2. Fundamental Astronomy, Hannu Kartttunen, Pekka Kröger, Heikki Oja, Markku Poutanen, and Karl Johan Donner, Editors, Sixth Edition, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2017, pp. 31-34.
Moving inward toward the densely populated central region of the cluster, we find numerous young stellar objects of spectral types O and B. Various photoelectric and photographic magnitude observations reported by Walker were made with instruments at Lowell, Mount Wilson, and Palomar Observatories. His measured V magnitudes for stars from Figures 2 and 3 are listed below. Also included are the magnitudes from the Simbad Database in parentheses (V) and SkySafari 7 Pro in brackets [V] for comparison. Stellar type is from the Simbad Database. Asterisk * means I can't find the star in SkySafari.
Prototype and pre-main-sequence stars are referred to as young stellar objects (YSOs). They are embedded in surrounding dust and gas which radiates much of their original luminous energies in the far infrared, particularly the former stars. Two references that I recommend from the scholarly and layman literatures are provided below.
References:
1. "Optical and infrared observations of young stellar objects - an informal review", S.E. Strom, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 84(502), December 1972, pp. 745-756.
2. "Deciphering the mysteries of stellar origins", Charles Lada, Sky & Telescope, Vol. 85 (5), May 1993, pp. 18-24.
Walker's measured V magnitudes for stars from Figures 4 and 5 are listed below. Also included are the magnitudes from the Simbad Database in parentheses (V) and SkySafari 7 Pro in brackets [V] for comparison. Stellar type is from the Simbad Database. Asterisk * means I can't find the star in SkySafari.
References:
1. "On the nature of early-type emission line objects in NGC 6611", C. Martayan, M. Floquet, A.-M. Hubert, J. Fabregat, Y. Frémat, D. Baade and C. Neiner, SF2A-2007: Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics held in Grenoble, France, July 2-6, 2007, Eds.: J. Bouvier, A. Chalabaev, and C. Charbonnel, pp. 518-521.
2. "Early-type objects in NGC 6611 and the Eagle Nebula", C. Martayan, M. Floquet, A.-M. Hubert, C. Neiner, Y. Frémat, D. Baade and J. Fabregat, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 489, 459-480 (2008).
Additional references on the creation of young stars through gravitational collapse of the surrounding gas and dust clouds are given here. Specific material devoted to the NGC 6611 cluster is noted with an asterisk *.
References:
There are 75 members of the open cluster NGC 6611 listed by M.F. Walker in his 1961 paper. Links to the Simbad Database for all of them are listed as action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
The data for about 7800 stars were presented as a catalogue of 70 clusters using identification charts and tables for each cluster. On page 432 you will find the chart and table for NGC 6611. There are 24 stars listed in the table and referenced to the chart using an XY Cartesian grid overlay. I was able to identify 18 of these stars. Four stars had coordinates lying outside the grid so were not accessible. The other two stars were located in a congested region so were not easily identified.
In the table below you will find the Hoag number (1-24) cross-referenced to the NGC 6611 identifiers, their V result, and the Walker V magnitudes in parentheses. Six of the Hoag stars were not included in Walker's photoelectric observations Table 1 (they are marked with an asterisk *). There is reasonable agreement between the two sets of measurements.
We can also compare the B-V and U-B measurements for the same stars with Walker's results in parentheses. An asterisk * denotes data not available. Note that there are systematic differences between the results of Walker and Hoag et al.
"Photometry of stars in galactic cluster fields", A.A. Hoag, H.L. Johnson, B. Iriarte, R.I Mitchell, K.L. Hallam, and S. Sharpless, Publications of the U.S. Naval Observatory. 2d ser., Vol. 17(7), Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1961, pp. 344-542.
The data for cluster NGC 6611 are from observations made using UBV photoelectric and photographic photometry coordinated by the U.S. Naval and Lowell Observatories under contract with the Office of Naval Research NONR 2570(00). H.L. Johnson was the Principal Investigator.
As a side note, back in the early 2000s I too was a Principal Investigator for an ONR contract worth several million Canadian dollars. Fond memories of those years.
Table 1 in the Hiltner and Morgan paper includes V, (B-V) and (U-B) measurements, as well as spectral types. Walker's V magnitudes are shown in parentheses below. Again, as with the Hoag et al. measurements, there are systematic differences in their (B-V) and (U-B) measurements which can be found in Tables 1 of both papers if you are interested (see note below this table). The 15 stars in this work are all main sequence O and B types.
Note:
Hiltner and Morgan state that the V magnitude agreement with Walker's results are good, however, "... there is a systematic difference in the values of (B-V) and (U-B) of 0.03 and 0.10, respectively, in the sense that Walker's observations are bluer than those presented here".
"UBV Photometry and Spectral Types in NGC 6611", W.A. Hilton and W.W. Morgan, The Astronomical Journal, 74(10), 1969, p. 11.52.
The authors from Yerkes Observatory used the McDonald 82-inch reflector to carry out UBV photometry measurements of 15 stars from Table 1 on page 439 of the Walker paper, "Studies of extremely young clusters. IV. NGC 6611", Merle F. Walker, Astrophys. J., 133, 438-456, (1961). Stellar types for these stars are also listed by Hiltner and Morgan.
Based on proper motions, Kamp determined that more than 40 stars were cluster members (>50% probabilities) or possible cluster members (10%-50% probabilities). Kamp used Walker's numbering system 1-550, and extended it from 551 to 617. I have listed the higher probability group of stars in the table below. Memberships that agree with Walker are marked with a bold W. Twelve new stars with high membership probabilities based on Kamp's proper motion work are shown on my Origin field with blue labels.
Fifteen membership stars determined by Walker, which had very low Kamp membership probabilities, are listed below and labeled in the chart using yellow labels.
"Proper motions, cluster membership and reddening in NGC 6611", L.W. Kamp, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. 16, (1974), pp. 1-23.
Using plates from the Yerkes 40-inch refracting telescope, Kemp estimated cluster membership probabilities based on proper motion. Three plates were used and dated 10 August 1922, 23 June 1968, and 14 July 1969 - a span of over 45 years.
His table on page 1784 includes the visual magnitudes and spectral types of 24 bright stars in the cluster NGC 6611 (not 25 as his body text says on page 1790). In the table below I include the Walker NGC 6611 XXX designation beside his numbers 1-24, which refer to his finder charts on page 1785. He notes that his star number 2 (Walker 206) is a foreground star (see Figure 2 above).
Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Volume Three: Pavo Through Vulpecula, Robert Burnham, Jr., Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1978, pp. 1782-1792.
Robert Burnham was a staff member at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. His notes on M16 and NGC 6611 summarize research prior to the volume's publication date. Included are two images of M16 in blue and red light using the Lowell 13-inch telescope (p. 1782). He references both Walker (1961) and Hoag et al. (1961) in his discussion.
Fifteen plates were used in the Tucholke et al. proper motion study: 4 from 1920, 2 from 1962, 4 from 1968, 1 from 1969, 1 from 1971, and three new ones dated June 27 and July 7, 1984. Twenty-two stars in this work did not have a prior designation so the authors extended the numbers used by Walker and Kamp from NGC 6611 618 to NGC 6611 639. Note that the authors state there are 21 new stars in the main text, however, their Figure 1 finder chart on page 320 shows 22 stars.
At this point in the history of NGC 6611 cluster membership there have been four studies: Walker (1961), van Schewick (1962), Kamp (1974) and Tucholke (1986). I do not have access to the van Schewick paper, so, below is a table summarizing some of the membership conclusions from the other three studies.
Stars with membership agreement from all three research groups are listed below. I have arbitrarily chosen 50% probability or better for the two proper motion studies. The first number is the NGC 6611 id assigned by Walker (1-550), then Kamp in % and Tucholke et al. in %. There are 25 stars with high probability of cluster membership. These stars are labeled in orange in the Origin field above.
"The proper motion and membership of stars in the very young open cluster NGC 6611", H.-J. Tucholke, M. Geffert, and P.S. Thé, Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 66, 311-322 (1986).
This paper was a collaborative effort by researchers at the Astronomisches Institut der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität, Federal Republic of Germany, Observatories Hoher List der Universitätssternwarte Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany, and Astronomical Institute, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, respectively.
The research used plates from the 30-cm double refractor at the Hoher List Observatory in Bonn. These plates covered three epochs spanning 64 years: 1920, 1962-1971, and 1984. Of the 233 stars selected for study, 113 were considered members of the open cluster NGC 6611.
This work addressed cluster membership discrepancies between the van Schewick proper motion study (not covered here - see reference below) and Kamp's proper motion conclusions. The telescope used by van Schewick was also used for the new 1984 measurements in this work.
Reference:
H. van Schewick, Veröff. Univ. Sternw. Bonn, 62 (1962).
During this period there were four independent research groups investigating NGC 6611 membership using photoelectric and proper motion techniques. The NGC 6611 identifiers in the Simbad Database were assigned by Walker (1961), Kamp (1974), and Tucholke, Geffert and Thé (1986): 1-550, 551-617, and 618-639, respectively. I will refer to this numbering scheme as WKT. Each study determined the following number of members: 75 (Walker), 35 (Kamp), and 113 (Tucholke et al.). I did not have access to H. van Schewick's paper (1962). All three groups agree on 25 stars with a high probability of membership. These stars are marked with asterisks (*) on the Simbad action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
Stoop et al. list 146 member stars using GAIA Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) id numbers in their Appendix C table. EDR3 includes photometry and astrometry data for 1.8 billion objects down to magnitude 21 (see Ref. 1 below). Also included in the table, of interest to this webpage's scope, are spectral types, V magnitudes, color index (B-V) , and the color excess E(B-V). The data in Stoop's table comes from several sources (Refs. 2-7 below). Walker numbers (1-550) are given as Wxxx, Kamp numbers (551-617) as Kxxx, and Tucholke et al. (618-639) as Txxx. For Walker members, an asterisk has been added to the Simbad action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
Reference
"The early evolution of young massive clusters: The kinematic history of NGC 6611/M16", M. Stoop, L. Kaper, A. de Koter, D. Guo, H.J.G.L.M. Lamers, and S. Rieder, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 670, A108 (2023).
The authors are from the following institutions: Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy - University of Amsterdam, Institute of Astronomy - KU Lauven, Geneva Observatory - University of Geneva, School of Physics and Astronomy - University of Exeter, respectively.
Walker numbers (1-550) are given as Wxxx, Kamp numbers (551-617) as Kxxx, and Tucholke et al. (618-639) as Txxx. For Walker members, an asterisk has been added to the Simbad action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
"The early evolution of young massive clusters: The kinematic history of NGC 6611/M16", M. Stoop, L. Kaper, A. de Koter, D. Guo, H.J.G.L.M. Lamers, and S. Rieder, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 670, A108 (2023).
The authors are from the following institutions: Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy - University of Amsterdam, Institute of Astronomy - KU Lauven, Geneva Observatory - University of Geneva, School of Physics and Astronomy - University of Exeter, respectively.
Walker numbers (1-550) are given as Wxxx, Kamp numbers (551-617) as Kxxx, and Tucholke et al. (618-639) as Txxx. For Walker members, an asterisk has been added to the Simbad action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
"The early evolution of young massive clusters: The kinematic history of NGC 6611/M16", M. Stoop, L. Kaper, A. de Koter, D. Guo, H.J.G.L.M. Lamers, and S. Rieder, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 670, A108 (2023).
The authors are from the following institutions: Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy - University of Amsterdam, Institute of Astronomy - KU Lauven, Geneva Observatory - University of Geneva, School of Physics and Astronomy - University of Exeter, respectively.
Walker numbers (1-550) are given as Wxxx, Kamp numbers (551-617) as Kxxx, and Tucholke et al. (618-639) as Txxx. For Walker members, an asterisk has been added to the Simbad action buttons at the bottom of this webpage.
"The early evolution of young massive clusters: The kinematic history of NGC 6611/M16", M. Stoop, L. Kaper, A. de Koter, D. Guo, H.J.G.L.M. Lamers, and S. Rieder, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 670, A108 (2023).
The authors are from the following institutions: Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy - University of Amsterdam, Institute of Astronomy - KU Lauven, Geneva Observatory - University of Geneva, School of Physics and Astronomy - University of Exeter, respectively.
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