Charles Messier catalogs M37 on Jan 31,1779
RGranddad explores the astronomer Charles Messier and his catalog….. Over the last few days I have added a boatload of ancestors of my fifth great-grandfather Samuel Johnson and his wife Antje Anney Brower I have taken both of their family lines back to the early 1600s in New York. Anyway, as I was looking over events that happened on January 31st this one from 1779. Samuel would have turned 19 that year. The event was Charles Messier’s addition of M57 (Ring Nebula in Lyra) to his catalog. Since I didn’t know who Charles Messier was or what his catalog was I set out to find out about them! (P.S. I do know what a ring nebula is). I am always amazed at what the early astronomers were able to accomplish 300 plus years ago!) From Wikipedia….. Charles Messier ( 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 “Messier objects”. The purpose of the catalogue was to help astronomical observers, in particular comet hunters such as himself, distinguish between permanent and transient visually diffuse objects in the sky. As for the catalog….. ….The final version of the catalogue was published in 1781, in the 1784 issue of Connaissance des Temps.[5][6] The final list of Messier objects had grown to 103. On several occasions between 1921 and 1966, astronomers and historians discovered evidence of another seven objects that…
