The Messier Album

[vppmhjeeyysr]

I hope this hasn't been done before on this board - didn't find it anyways.

Most will know about some stunning sights with a name 'M' followed by a number. These are from Charles Messier's catalog of nebulous objects. He started out his list to distinguish these objects from comets, as he was a comet hunter. His list includes galaxies, planetary nebulae, open clusters and globular clusters. The list as in use today has 110 items. Some of these have been photographed by the SDSS.

NOT included in the SDSS are: M 1, M 4, M 6, M 7, M 8, M 9, M 10, M 11, M 12, M 14, M 16, M 17, M 18, M 19, M 20, M 21, M 22, M 23, M 24, M 25, M 26, M 27, M 28, M 29, M 30, M 31, M 32, M 33, M 34, M 35, M 36, M 37, M 38, M 39, M 41, M 42, M 43, M 45, M 46, M 47, M 48, M 50, M 52, M 54, M 55, M 56, M 57, M 62, M 68, M 69, M 70, M 71, M 72, M 73, M 74, M 75, M 76, M 78, M 79, M 80, M 83, M 93, M 103, M 104, M 107, M 110.

AVAILABLE on SDSS plates are some of the biggest and brightest non-star objects from the Messier's catalogue: M 2, M 3, M 5, M 13, M 15, M 40, M 44, M 49, M 51, M 53, M 58, M 59, M 60, M 61, M 63, M 64, M 65, M 66, M 67, M 77, M 81, M 82, M 84, M 85, M 86, M 87, M 88, M 89, M 90, M 91, M 92, M 94, M 95, M 96, M 97, M 98, M 99, M 100, M 101, M 102, M 105, M 106, M 108, M 109.

[jlowe]

Thanks.. that's a nice list to have in one place.. 

[Geoff]

Great piece of work!

Maybe Alice could create a link to this entry and add it to the FAQ under the Technical area 

Geoff

[Alice]

Hint taken! I was wondering if "Star Space" wouldn't be a better place for this topic in case it gets swamped in here.

Update: Link now provided in the Reference Library (our first update!)   And I found what looks like a neat website about the Messier Objects here, although if you just Google "Messier Objects" a lot more will turn up.

[Geoff]

Thanks Alice - quick work

Geoff

[vppmhjeeyysr]

I found what looks like a neat website about the Messier Objects here

Yeah, I used that Seds.org site as a source to get the rough coordinates (ra,dec) to test for SDSS availability of the objects. 

[EricFDiaz]

Just for the record, technically there are only 109 Messier objects. Pierre Méchain unwittingly classified M101  as two separate objects. He later realized that M102 was actually M101 cataloged twice.

[Edd]

Just for the record, technically there are only 109 Messier objects. Pierre Méchain unwittingly classified M101  as two separate objects. He later realized that M102 was actually M101 cataloged twice.

Something's wrong then - M101 and M102 as linked above are nowhere near each other.

[njtm]

Just for the record, technically there are only 109 Messier objects. Pierre Méchain unwittingly classified M101  as two separate objects. He later realized that M102 was actually M101 cataloged twice.

Something's wrong then - M101 and M102 as linked above are nowhere near each other.

Nor do they look like eachother!
Or is that the designation "M102" was given to another galaxy?

[Edd]

http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m102d.html

[vppmhjeeyysr]

http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m102d.html

Thank you. I could/should have mentioned going with NGC 5866 for M 102 in my first post.

[EricFDiaz]

http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m102d.html

Thanks, Edd for posting the link. The article was very enlightening. The case for M102 being identical to the galaxy NGC 5866 seems pretty compelling. It just goes to show you how in astronomy you constantly have to keep updating your knowledge-base, even when it comes to historical topics, such as this. I stand corrected. 

[dlocksmith]

What I'm wondering is, is the data from SIMBAD accurate, and am I correct about it being barred?

I dont know how you identify a bar in an edge on galaxy. It would surely look very different according to its angle of rotation. Bars do rotate do they 

What I do know, and its described perfectly in the M102 story, is that astronomers sitting up all night alone and drinking coffee will make errors. I know from looking back on my own forum posts that I will write down ID numbers wrongly and might look at an object one day and see it totally differently another time. Partly from tiredness and partly because my knowledge and experience are growing enabling me to see and recognise increasingly complex paterns in the images I view.

We have the best view yet of the heavens, we are truely standing on the shoulders of some awsome giants, and I believe that the Galaxy zoo classifiers will be less error prone than previous classifiers simply because of the numbers of us.

I would like to propose that the resulting catalog should be named the Tidier catalog