messier

"Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life." -Marcel Proust Welcome to another Messier Monday, where each week we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue! Messier was not the first person to try and make an accurate, large catalog of deep sky objects, but he was the first to successfully do so: most of his objects both actually exist, are deep sky objects, and had their positions recorded correctly. Image credit: © 2008 Space-and-Telescope.com. Most, that is, but not all. Today, we'll be looking at the open star cluster Messier 48…
"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…
"A wise old owl lived in an oak The more he saw the less he spoke The less he spoke the more he heard. Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?" -The Immortal Poet Bromley To your naked eye, the night sky appears littered with thousands of individual points of light: the stars and planets so familiar to us. But through even a small telescope or a pair of binoculars, not only do the number of visible stars increase into the hundreds-of-thousands or even the millions, but a slew of deep-sky objects become visible to us as well. Each monday, we highlight one of the deep-sky objects from…
"Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it." -Vaclav Havel But the spiral is more than a metaphor or a mathematical shape, it's also the most common feature observed in the galaxies out there in the Universe. There are 27 spiral galaxies in the Messier Catalogue, and today I want to show you how to find the most southerly of them all! Image credit: Rich Richins, of all 110 Messier objects (in no particular order). M83 boxed. The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 83, is a full 30 degrees south of the celestial…
“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…
"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all." -John Lennon Welcome to the latest edition of Messier Monday, where each week we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects in the Messier Catalog. These objects, all of which are visible from certain northern latitudes at certain times of the year, were catalogued explicitly to prevent comet-hunters from confusing these static objects with potential comets. Image credit: SEDS Messier…
"The man's a born straggler... another lucky exception to the rules of natural selection. A million years ago he would've been an easy snack for a saber-toothed tiger." -Carl Hiaasen Welcome to the latest Messier Monday, where each week we take a look at one of Charles Messier's original catalogue of 110 deep-sky objects that comet-hunters might easily confuse with those transient passers-by in our Solar System. Image credit: Greg Scheckler, from his 2008 Messier marathon, where he nabbed 105/110. Quite to the contrary, each of the 110 objects in the Messier catalogue are (semi-)permanent…
"When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system." -Kalpana Chawla Welcome to this week's Messier Monday, where I pick a new object out of the original catalogue of 110 "faint fuzzies" designed to help comet-hunters avoid confusion with these fixed, extended night sky objects. Image credit: The Messier Objects by Alistair Symon, from 2005-2009. In previous weeks, we've focused on a variety of objects, including a globular cluster, an open star cluster, a supernova remnant and an active star-forming nebula…
"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old." -Mark Twain Welcome to yet another installment of Messier Monday, where each week, I'll pick one of the 110 Messier Objects -- deep-sky objects catalogued to avoid confusion for comet hunters -- to highlight for you. Image(s) credit: SEDS -- http://messier.seds.org/. So far, we've taken a look at a supernova remnant, a young open star cluster, and an active star-forming nebula, a testament to the great diversity of these faint, fuzzy objects that might be easily confused with a comet. Today…
"I hate that expression, 'fusion.' What it means to me is this movement where nothing ever really fused." -Wayne Kramer Welcome to another Messier Monday, where each week, I pick one of the 110 Messier Objects -- deep-sky objects catalogued to avoid confusion for comet hunters -- to highlight and detail. Image(s) credit: SEDS -- http://messier.seds.org/. This week, I'd like to highlight one of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the naked eye in the night sky, and I want to do it before it disappears completely for the year! Visible for just an hour or so after sunset right now towards…
"Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades." -Walt Whitman Last week, we kicked off our very first Messier Monday by spotlighting M1: the Crab Nebula. But with 110 different objects to choose from, the Messier catalogue represents some of the brightest and most universally accessible wonders of the night sky. Image(s) credit: SEDS -- http://messier.seds.org/. Many of these…
"If you don't like what you're doing, you can always pick up your needle and move to another groove." -Timothy Leary Up in the night sky, shortly after sunset, the night sky holds some spectacular sights. Some are permanent, some are transient, some have been known for thousands of years, and some are still being discovered. Looking to the west after sunset tonight, this is what you're likely to see. Image credit: Me, using Stellarium, available free at http://stellarium.org. The Big Dipper, perhaps the most famous collection of seven stars in the night sky, looms large over the horizon. As…