Messier Objects

Objects from the Messier Catalog. Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French astronomer and comet hunter. With his assistant, Pierre Mechain, Messier compiled a list of 103 relatively bright diffuse objects that could be easily mistaken for comets. A further seven objects were added some time after his death. Messier's list of objects to ignore has become a go-to list for amateur astronomers and astrophotographers, as they are some of the brightest deep space objects in the night sky.