open cluster
esiegel | November 18, 2013“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Leonardo da Vinci
Welcome back to another exciting Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! As Comet ISON dives towards the Sun and a nearly perfect full Moon towers overhead, it's easy to forget about those wondrous deep-sky objects that are fixed, but the 110 prominent members of the Messier Catalogue are always on tap for dedicated skywatchers. Although the extended objects -- galaxies and nebulae -- are difficult to view with a…
esiegel | October 14, 2013"The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. [...] It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his." -John Eldredge
Welcome back to another Messier Monday, where the glittering wonders of the night sky -- visible to anyone at the right latitudes with even simple equipment -- are on display for everyone. The bright collection of 110 deep-sky wonders include star clusters, globular clusters, galaxies…
esiegel | September 9, 2013"Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg." -Hans Christian Anderson
Welcome back for another Messier Monday! There are 110 deep-sky objects in the Messier catalogue, some of the most prominent night-sky fixtures, as seen from Earth, running the gamut of astronomical phenomena from within our galaxy and beyond. Each week, we pick a new one to place under the spotlight, examining what it is, what we know about it, and how to find it, among other spectacular facts.
Image credit: Rolando Ligustri, taken over many years, retrieved from http://www.…
esiegel | August 5, 2013"Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Welcome back to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each Monday, we go through one of the 110 deep-sky wonders of the Messier Catalogue, some of the brightest and most prominent of the night sky wonders. Originally compiled by Charles Messier and his assistant, Pierre Méchain, in the late 18th Century, these telescopic wonders showcase the cosmic beauty and variety easily visible from our vantage point here on Earth.
Image credit: Alistair…
esiegel | July 15, 2013"The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy." -Ezra Pound
It's time for another Messier Monday, where we profile one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier catalogue! This was the first large, accurate catalogue of fixed, non-transient objects to be assembled, and it makes for a delightful collection of targets for skywatchers all across the globe.
Image credit: Alistair Symon.
All throughout the next month, the Summer Triangle will delight skywatchers everywhere, as it flies high overhead in the early parts of the…
esiegel | July 8, 2013"Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
Stars that sweep, and turn, and fly
Hear the Lovers' Litany:
'Love like ours can never die!'" -Rudyard Kipling
Welcome back for yet another Messier Monday, where we choose one of the 110 deep-sky objects making up Charles Messier's 18th Century catalogue to highlight in detail. Originally designed as a catalogue to help comet-hunters avoid potential confusion with faint, fuzzy objects, this now serves as a wonderful collection of star clusters, nebulae, stellar corpses, globular clusters and galaxies, among others.
Image credit: Pedro Ré of Astrosurf, via…
esiegel | June 24, 2013"New stars offer to the mind a phenomenon more surprising, and less explicable, than almost any other in the science of astronomy." -George Adams
Welcome back to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! The Messier catalogue was the very first accurate deep-sky catalogue with over 100 objects, finally topping out with 110 in its final form today. Compiled in the 18th century by Charles Messier and his assistant Pierre Mechain, this collection of fixed, deep-sky objects contains 110 of the brightest, most easily found and most spectacular sight in the entire sky.
Image credit: Tenho…
esiegel | June 3, 2013"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." -Albert Camus
Welcome back to another Messier Monday, only here on Starts With A Bang! The first accurate, large catalogue of fixed, deep-sky objects, Messier's 110-object-strong catalogue features galaxies, clusters, nebulae and more, all visible with even primitive astronomical equipment to skywatchers who know where to look. Each Monday, we highlight a different one of these for your enjoyment.
Image credit: Mike Keith's delightful (a)periodic table of Messier objects!
Today, for the first time since…
esiegel | April 8, 2013"The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." -Henry David Thoreau
Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each week, we take a look at the 110 deep-sky objects that comprise the Messier catalogue, the first comprehensive catalogue of fixed, deep-sky objects that could possibly be confused for potential brightening comets.
Image credit: Giacomo Bongiorno of Le Meraviglie del Cielo.
Today, to mark our hitting the quarter-century mark in looking at these nebulae…
esiegel | February 11, 2013"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…
esiegel | December 24, 2012"This holiday season is about remembering that the greatest gift was not laid under a tree, but in a filthy manger." -Unknown
But it isn't the manger you're thinking of that I want to share with you this Messier Monday. Although Charles Messier's catalogue of 110 deep sky objects -- designed to pinpoint nebulae that could possibly be confused for potential comets -- is composed mostly of objects only visible through a telescope, a few of them are visible under good seeing conditions to the naked eye, and have been known since ancient times.
Image credit: Finotto Enrico, 2011 / flickr user…
esiegel | December 3, 2012"Who is wise? He that learns from everyone.
Who is powerful? He that governs his passions.
Who is rich? He that is content.
Who is that? Nobody." -Benjamin Franklin
Welcome to Messier Monday, where each week we take a journey into one of the 110 objects in the Messier Catalogue of non-cometary deep-sky objects. Ranging from stellar remnants to star clusters to globular clusters to distant galaxies and more, the Messier objects tell a rich and varied story that you can share in yourself through even the simplest of astronomical instruments.
Image credit: Rich Richins, of all 110 Messier…
esiegel | October 29, 2012"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…