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Since these objects could be observed visually with the relatively small-aperture refracting telescope (approximately 100 mm ≈ 4 inches) used by Messier to study the sky from downtown Paris, they are among the brightest and thus most attractive astronomical objects (popularly called deep-sky objects) observable from Earth, and are popular ...
Associations. Constellation. Scorpius. See also: Open cluster, List of open clusters. The Butterfly Cluster (cataloged as Messier 6 or M6, and as NGC 6405) is an open cluster of stars in the southern constellation of Scorpius. Its name derives from the resemblance of its shape to a butterfly. [5]
It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromeda has a D 25 isophotal diameter of about 46.56 kiloparsecs (152,000 light-years) [8] and is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years) from Earth. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation ...
Messier 78 or M78, also known as NGC 2068, is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year. [4] M78 is the brightest diffuse reflection nebula of a group of nebulae that includes NGC 2064, NGC 2067 and NGC 2071.
Charles Messier measured the position of the cluster and included it as "M45" in his catalogue of comet-like objects, published in 1771. Along with the Orion Nebula and the Praesepe cluster, Messier's inclusion of the Pleiades has been noted as curious, as most of Messier's objects were much fainter and more easily confused with comets ...
The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion, [b] and is known as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with an apparent magnitude of 4.0.
The constellation's most obvious deep-sky object is the naked-eye Andromeda Galaxy (M31, also called the Great Galaxy of Andromeda), the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and one of the brightest Messier objects. Several fainter galaxies, including M31's companions M110 and M32, as well as the more distant NGC 891, lie within Andromeda.
M91 (NGC 4548), a barred spiral galaxy with a bright, diffuse nucleus, is the faintest object in Messier's catalog at magnitude 10.2. [87] M98 (NGC 4192), a bright, elongated spiral galaxy seen nearly edge-on, appears elliptical because of