Messier Objects

The Irony of Charles Messier

Cool Links!

SEDS Messier Database - An online database of M-Objects

Night Sky Planner - Fill in the form with your location, time you want to observe, and type of object you wish to look for and the site will generate a table of objects visible in the night sky for the date you indicate.

Who Was Charles Messier? - A short biography of Charles Messier

List of M-Objects - A Wikipedia article listing all Messier objects as well as some basic information in a table format

Clickable Table of Messier Objects - A table of pictures, each of which is linked to a Wikipedia article with more information about the object.

Deep Sky Videos - Lots of really neat videos about a variety of topics, including a large collection on most of the Messier objects.

Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French Astronomer whose main interest was discovering comets. At that time in history, discovering new comets could make one famous, so he was very eager to make new discoveries. However, there were many bright objects in the sky that could be mistaken for comets and distracted scientists from finding what they were looking for. In fact, he had such an experience while looking for the return of Haley's Comet in 1757. In an effort to keep other astronomers from making the same errors, Messier decided to catalog these objects in the night sky giving them numbers. There are 110 M-objects in the Messier Catalog and astronomers have been referencing this list for centuries.

So what's the irony? Charles Messier was famous for creating a list of "non-comets" when his real goal was to discover a comet. Did he ever discover any comets? Actually, yes, he did. But that is not the contribution to astronomy for which he is most well known.

Want to learn more? Check out the video below and the cool links on this page to learn even more about Messier and M-Objects.