Messier Objects' Catalogue

[Ravi Hegde]

What are the authentic weblinks for the Messier Objects' Catalogue?

[Zermelo]

Hello, I'm not sure what "authentic" would mean for the Messier list.  I don't believe that it is managed by any official group like the IAU, unlike the names of stars and planets, or the boundaries of constellations.

Messier himself released two versions of the list, and then a few more objects were later added by other astronomers who believed that Messier (or his collaborators) had observed them, but had not included them in the original list. The status of M102 is still the subject of some debate.

The best starting point is possibly Wikipedia, which has some links to further resources.

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, Ravi Hegde said:

What are the authentic weblinks for the Messier Objects' Catalogue?

Unfortunately, I don't think Messier ever published his list on a web page; and if he did, it is probably long since defunct.  The Internet Archive only goes back to 1996, not 1774, so we're out of luck there as well. 😉 

[Froglord]

I don't know who maintains it, but this website is a very good resource for the Messier catalogue:

https://www.messier-objects.com/

 

[Zermelo]

23 hours ago, Louis D said:

The Internet Archive only goes back to 1996, not 1774, so we're out of luck there as well.

Yes, it's only the "WayBack Machine".

We need the "WayWayBack Machine".

[doublevodka]

21 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Yes, it's only the "WayBack Machine".

We need the "WayWayBack Machine".

How's your French? https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65067013/f233 You can find almost anything if you dig hard enough 😂

[wookie1965]

https://sherwood-observatory.org.uk/astronomy/finder-charts/messier-finders

These are Telrad finder charts but I think they could do. 

[josefk]

That sherwood observatory link is a nice resource @wookie1965 - I can see myself downloading and printing a few of those to a binder for use on purely analogue nights. Many thanks.

Edited June 2, 2023 by josefk

[wookie1965]

Just now, josefk said:

That sherwood observatory link is a nice resource @wookie1965 - I can see myself downloading and printing a few of those to a binder for use on purely analogue nights. Many thanks.

Your very welcome I did that when I had my Eq3-2 so I could find objects. 

[ONIKKINEN]

There is also a Youtube channel that did a video on every messier object, highly recommend watching at least the objects you are interested in:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC9FC5F6773B383D5

 

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, doublevodka said:

How's your French? https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65067013/f233 You can find almost anything if you dig hard enough 😂

Very cool. To translate to English, I just clicked open the Text Mode (OCR) tab on the left and right clicked in Chrome and selected "Translate to English".  Not the best translation, but I certainly got the gist of most of the descriptions.

It's obvious he had insufficient aperture to resolve even the showpiece GCs or to detect the faint nebulosity associated with some OCs.  However, he was able to detect lots of galaxies that are mostly lost to light pollution in all but the darkest skies.  It must have been an interesting time back then.  Nice dark skies, but very crude and small instruments.

It's also obvious he had no idea what he was looking at other than the star clusters.

However, this source does provide the OP with an "authentic weblinks for the Messier Objects' Catalogue" as requested.