Charles Messier – Astronomy Now

A sea of blazing stars in a galactic spiral of gas, dust and starbirth

23 March 2023 Astronomy Now

M83, known as the Southern Pinwheel, is a majestic barred spiral some 15 million light years away, one of the closest examples of its kind to Earth’s Milky Way.

NASA unveils 30 “Celestial Gems” from Caldwell Catalogue to mark Hubble’s three decades in space

23 December 2020 Astronomy Now

NASA celebrates the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30th year in space by releasing newly processed images taken from the Caldwell catalogue of amateur-accessible targets not included in Messier’s list.

A rich globular lurking in the shadow of a more famous sibling

27 May 2019 Astronomy Now

Lurking in plain sight just a stone’s throw away from a more famous sibling is the rich globular cluster M92, one of the brightest in the northern sky and a worthy target for even modest telescopes.

Catch sight of a celestial owl flying overhead in the spring sky

18 April 2019 Ade Ashford

Owls may be scarce near your favourite viewing spot, but the Northern Hemisphere spring sky contains one celestial owl that you can track down in small telescopes – Messier 97 (NGC 3587). Commonly called the Owl Nebula, M97 is a planetary nebula discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 that is currently ideally placed for observation almost overhead at nightfall in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear.

Hubble shoots a Wild Duck (the cluster, that is)

29 March 2019 Astronomy Now

Stars in the Wild Duck Cluster, a favourite target for amateur astronomers, sparkle like jewels on black velvet in this view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the remarkably rich cluster’s colourful components with crystalline clarity.

Messier spotted the first extra-galactic globular cluster in 1778

10 July 2018 Astronomy Now

Globular clusters orbiting the core of the Milky Way are favourite targets for amateur astronomers, especially those in the Messier catalogue. It turns out one of them is the first extra-galactic globular ever discovered, something Charles Messier could not have imagined.

A death star’s ghostly glow

28 October 2016 Astronomy Now

The eerie glow of a dead star, which exploded long ago as a supernova, reveals itself in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus. But don’t be fooled. The ghoulish-looking object still has a pulse. Buried at its centre is the star’s telltale heart — a neutron star which beats with rhythmic precision.

ESO’S VISTA telescope reveals hidden stars in Messier 78

5 October 2016 Astronomy Now

In this new image of the nebula Messier 78, young stars cast a bluish pall over their surroundings, while red fledgling stars peer out from their cocoons of cosmic dust. ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) sees near-infrared light, which passes right through dust, permitting astronomers to probe deep into the heart of the stellar environment.

VST captures 615-megapixel image of open cluster Messier 18

11 August 2016 Astronomy Now

Messier 18 is the small smattering of bright blue stars upper left of centre in this small-scale version of the original mammoth 30,577 x 20,108 pixel ESO image captured by the OmegaCAM camera attached to the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Messier 17 in Sagittarius: a cosmic rose with many names

24 September 2015 Astronomy Now

This new image of the rose-coloured star forming region Messier 17 was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It is one of the sharpest images showing the entire nebula and not only reveals its full size, but also retains fine detail throughout the cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars.