catalogue
esiegel | December 16, 2013"Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe." -Maria Mitchell
It's time again for Messier Monday, where we highlight the various wonderous deep-sky objects of the night, and show you how to find them against the expansive backdrop of stars. The (almost) full Moon is out tonight, polluting your night sky with as much light as a large-sized urban area, but that doesn't mean all of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue are off-limits!
Image credit: Mike Keith’s delightful (a)periodic table of Messier objects!
While extended…
esiegel | February 4, 2013"The thing's hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it's full of stars!" -Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Back in October, we began a new, weekly series here called Messier Monday. Each Monday, we've taken a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue, nebulous objects that might potentially be confused with comets by unaware comet-hunters.
Image credit: Lee Kelvin and Grant Miller, via http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~lsk9/.
These objects include stellar remnants, star-forming nebulae, young star clusters, ancient globular clusters, and distant galaxies far…
esiegel | December 17, 2012“Men... have had the vanity to pretend that the world creation was made for them, whilst in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence.” -Camille Flammarion
Welcome to the latest -- and most controversial -- Messier Monday, where each week, I'll take a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue. These objects were identified so as not to be confused with potential comets, and make up the brightest and best-known observational sights beyond our own Solar System. But there is one object that, if you go to the wikipedia list, that has not been…