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Messier object. The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles (Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters). Because Messier was interested only in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects that frustrated his ...
Charles Messier. Charles Messier (French: [ʃaʁl me.sje]; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the Messier objects, referred to with the letter M and their number between 1 and 110. Messier's purpose for the ...
Winnecke 4 (also known as Messier 40 or WNC 4) is an optical double star consisting of two unrelated stars in a northerly zone of the sky, Ursa Major. The pair were discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 while he was searching for a nebula that had been reported in the area by Johannes Hevelius .
1712 — Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley publish a catalog based on data from a Royal Astronomer who left all his data under seal, the official version would not be released for another decade. 1725 — Posthumous publication of John Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica; 1771 — Charles Messier publishes his first list of nebulae
Messier marathon. A Messier marathon is an attempt, usually organized by amateur astronomers, to find as many Messier objects as possible during one night. The Messier catalogue was compiled by French astronomer Charles Messier during the late 18th century and consists of 110 relatively bright deep-sky objects (galaxies, nebulae, and star ...
Messier 13 was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, [ 2 ] and cataloged by Charles Messier on June 1, 1764, [ 9 ] into his list of objects not to mistake for comets; Messier's list, including Messier 13, eventually became known as the Messier catalog. [ 10 ] It is located at right ascension 16 h 41.7 m, declination +36° 28'.
Messier 102 (also known as M102) is a galaxy listed in the Messier Catalogue that cannot be unambiguously identified. Its original discoverer Pierre Méchain retracted his discovery two years after publication and said that it was a duplicate observation of Messier 101. [1] Later historical evidence favors that M102 is actually the galaxy NGC ...
Classifying non-stellar astronomical objects began soon after the invention of the telescope. [3] One of the earliest comprehensive lists was Charles Messier's 1774 Messier catalog, which included 103 "nebulae" and other faint fuzzy objects he considered a nuisance since they could be mistaken for comets, the objects he was actually searching for. [3]