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Credit: courtesy NOAO
Explanation:
French astronomer
Charles Messier was born on June 26, 1730.
Inspired by childhood sightings of comets and a solar eclipse visible
from his home town of Badonvillier, he became an astronomer
and comet hunter
who kept careful records of his observations.
While
hunting for comets in the skies above France
he made
a now famous list of the positions of about 100 fuzzy,
diffuse looking objects which appeared at fixed positions in the sky.
Although these objects looked like comets,
Messier knew that since they
did not move with respect to the background stars they could not be the
comets he was searching for. These objects are now well
known to modern astronomers to be among the brightest and most striking
nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies.
Objects on Messier's list are still
referred to by their "Messier number".
The first object in his catalog,
M1 pictured above - also known as
the Crab Nebula,
was recorded during his search for
the return of comet Halley in 1758.
Messier died in his home in Paris in 1817.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
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