Click here to see the original Messier's Catalogue, with description in English, French and Italian.
Around the middle of XVIIIth century, humanity stood at the threshold of the great observations of the sideral spaces. More one thousand years from Ptolemy's Almagest, Tycho Brahe and Keplero, Galileo and Newton, Flamsteed and Halley, Cassini and Hevelius had already given great contributions to conventional astronomy and had overcome the barriers which the obscurity of the middle ages and the misunderstanding which aristotelism had spread on the understanding of the nature of the universe and its laws.
But the real, great telescopic observers were still far, of except Giovan Battista Hodierna, whose ignored observations and theories on the nebulae are too much ahead of his time (about one century before) and was never able to awake the interest of his contemporaneous.
It was a French astronomer, Charles Messier, who created the basis of deep sky telescopic astronomy, with his catalogue of nebulae and star clusters. Although he wasn't a real scientist, he was a committed hunter of comets, and an extraordinary and indefatigable observer. His catalogue represents an essential step in the history of deep sky astronomy, and nowadays, despite the weight of, for example, the "New General Catalogue", when we speak about some objects included in Messier's list, we like to nominate them with Messier's name (M1, M42, M31...) rather the NGC's one.
Today, we can judge his extreme interest in the comets as banal and misleading. But to the astronomers of 200 years ago, the static and ghostly nebulae appeared rather insignificant: only some 50 comets were known from the beginning of astronomy, and within the next half century Messier himself observed more than that number.
The realization of the return of Halley's comet increased the study of the comets. Messier's first notoriety, in fact, is linked to this comet.
In 1751 he had come in Paris from his native country, the Lorraine, and the astronome J. N. Delisle hired him as a draftsman and as a recorder for astronomical observations. During his drafting work Messier was also instructed in the use of the astronomical instruments, and shortly he became an experienced observer. In 1754 he obtained the position of clerck at the Marine Observatory in Paris.
Meanwhile, the time for the awaited return of Halley's comet was approaching: Delisle had drawn a detailed map according to his predictions on the route of the comet in its travel toward the perihelion. Unfortunately, the map was erroneous, and Messier spent 18 months searching systematically but without any success.
On Christmas night, 1758, the comet was seen by a Saxon amateur named Palitzsch, but the notice was delayed over three months in reaching France. And Messier, despite the mistaken map, independently rediscovered the comet on January 21, 1759; but, incomprehensibly, he was forbidden by Delisle to announce his observation, until Palitzsch's discovery became known in France. Moreover, the other astronomers refused to consider as authentic Messier's observations up to that time.
Shortly afterwards, anyway, Delisle retired, and Messier continued his work from the observatory of the Hotel de Cluny in Paris. He discovered the comet of 1764, and since then, for about 15 years, nearly all comet discoveries were made by Messier. He claimed to have discovered 21 comets in his lifetime, but modern astronomers reduce this number to 15.
Besides being a tireless comet observer, Messier was interesting also in occultations, transits and eclipses. But his considerable fame among his contemporaries lifted him from his comet discoveries. He became a member of the Royal Society in London in 1758 and, later, of the Berlin Academy and half a dozen other societies. And in 1770, finally, he became also a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris.
Almost immediately he contributed the first of a great number of astronomical "Memoirs" to the journal of the academy. This was the "Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des amas d'Etoiles, que l'on découvre parmi les Etoiles fixes, sue l'horizon de Paris".
Charles Messier published his catalog in three stages: the first edition appeared in the "Memoires de l'Academie" for 1771 (published 1774) and covered the objects M1 to M45. Also in 1774, it was printed in Lalande's Ephemerides for 1775-84 (according to Owen Gingerich). The first supplement (to M68) was published in the "Connaissance des Temps" for 1783 (published 1780), together with a reprint of the first catalog edition. The objects M69 and M70 were added in a separate contribution to the same volume. Messier provided an introduction to his catalog, and following the catalog, a list was printed of objects reported by previous observers but not verified by Messier when he had looked for them, and Lacaille's Catalog of Nebulae of the Southern Sky. The final published version of the catalog appeared in the "Connaissance des Temps" for 1784 (published 1781), containing the objects up to 103. Again, the introduction and the list of failed object observations was printed after the catalog, followed by Lacaille's Catalog of Nebulae of the Southern Sky. This version of the catalog was reprinted unchanged in the "Connaissance des Temps" for 1787 (published 1784) together with all its appendices.
Messier never published a further upgrade, although he has expressed plans to do so (e.g. in the "Connaissance des Temps" for 1801. However, he made extensive use of his personal copy of the catalog, adding the missing two positions for M102 and M103, and the new entry M104 as well as positions for two objects mentioned with M97 (they were later assigned M108 and M109). Other additional objects have been added from a letter from Méchain (who had probably planned to include them in a later revision which never occurred) and a publication by Messier.
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