Charles Messier

Charles Messier (Badonviller, Lorraine, June 26, 1730 - Paris, April 12, 1817) was a French astronomer and comet hunter, known for being the creator of the catalog of 110 space objects deep (nebulae, galaxies and star clusters) that constitute the catalog of Messier objects. This catalog was first published in 1774. Messier objects are numbered M1 to M110, and are still known by that name to aficionados today.

Life and work

Messier had worked for many years as an assistant at the Marine Observatory, installed in the Hôtel de Cluny, in the heart of Paris, from where he had made all his discoveries.

Legend has it that Messier, a great fan of comet hunting, inaugurated his catalog with M1 (the Crab nebula) on the night of August 28, 1758, when he was searching the sky for comet 1P/Halley on his first visit predicted by the English astronomer.

Messier did not discover all the objects in his catalogue, since many were observed by Pierre Méchain, also a Frenchman, and, years before, by other astronomers such as Edmond Halley. Messier's first true discovery was the globular cluster M3 at Canes Venaciti in 1764. Interestingly, Messier is more famous for his catalog of stellar objects than for the comets he discovered.

Messier's interest in cataloging those fixed objects was in being able to distinguish them from wandering ones, which would make it easier for him to search for comets. Thanks to the publication of his catalogue, William Herschel was stimulated to start (in 1783) an ambitious project that, through 20 years of research, allowed him to catalog a large number of nebulae and clusters in the northern hemisphere.

Despite the fact that the French King Louis XV referred to him as "The Ferret of Comets", Messier would not go down in history for his great work as comet hunters, but his name has been associated with the catalog of nebulous objects that created the Messier Catalog.

Acknowledgments

• The Messier crater of the Moon and the asteroid (7359) Messier were baptized in his honor.