M101
esiegel | October 28, 2013"I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms." -Voltaire
Every object that we look at for Messier Monday has its own flavor, its own qualities, and its own unique characteristics. By far the most numerous of the 110 deep-sky objects making up the Messier catalogue are the galaxies, of which there are 40. It's best to observe them on moonless nights, as their surface brightness is spread out across a large area, and even a crescent Moon's presence in the night sky can make all but the brightest of these galaxies invisible to the eye, even in good equipment.
Image credit: Mike Keith…
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…